Meta-analytic review of infants' preferential attention to familiar and unfamiliar face types based on gender and race

•Infant visual attention to different face types differs in the first year of life.•Small, positive effect size showing infants prefer to look at familiar over unfamiliar faces.•Young infants attend to familiar race faces (own-race).•Older infants attend to unfamiliar race faces (other-race).•This pattern is not the same for gender: infants generally prefer faces of familiar gender (i.e., female).•Best practices are recommended for studying infant visual attention.