Abstract
We are typically more accurate at remembering own- than other-race faces. This “own-race bias” has been suggested to result from enhanced expertise with and more efficient perceptual processing of own-race than other-race faces. In line with this idea, the N170, an event-related potential correlate of face perception, has been repeatedly found to be larger for other-race faces. Other studies, however, found no difference in N170 amplitude for faces from diverse ethnic groups. The present study tested whether these seemingly incongruent findings can be explained by varying task demands. European participants were presented with upright and inverted European and Asian faces (as well as European and Asian houses), and asked to either indicate the ethnicity or the orientation of the stimuli. Larger N170s for other-race faces were observed in the ethnicity but not in the orientation task, suggesting that the necessity to process facial category information is a minimum prerequisite for the occurrence of the effect. In addition, N170 inversion effects, with larger amplitudes for inverted relative to upright stimuli, were more pronounced for own- relative to other-race faces in both tasks. Overall, the present findings suggest that the occurrence of ethnicity effects in N170 for upright faces depends on the amount of facial detail required for the task at hand. At the same time, the larger inversion effects for own- than other-race faces occur independent of task and may reflect the fine-tuning of perceptual processing to faces of maximum expertise.
Highlights
Humans can typically recognize an immense number of previously seen faces and are often considered to be experts in face recognition
Larger N170s for other-race faces were observed in the ethnicity but not in the orientation task, suggesting that the necessity to process facial category information is a minimum prerequisite for the occurrence of the effect
The present findings suggest that the occurrence of ethnicity effects in N170 for upright faces depends on the amount of facial detail required for the task at hand
Summary
Humans can typically recognize an immense number of previously seen faces and are often considered to be experts in face recognition. A number of ERP studies tested effects of face ethnicity on the amplitude of the occipito-temporal P2, a positive-going component subsequent to N170, which has been suggested to reflect the processing of second-order configurations (Mercure et al, 2008), i.e., the metric distances between facial features, or the typicality of a face relative to a prototype (Schulz et al, 2012). For the present purpose, the P2 effect has been found to be modulated by task demands (Stahl et al, 2010), as it was substantially smaller and restricted to right-hemispheric electrodes when participants were asked to rate own- and other-race faces for attractiveness as compared to categorizing them according to ethnicity It is unclear whether the higher amount of facial detail necessary for the successful completion of the attractiveness task or the reduced salience of ethnicity information in this condition led to the reduced P2 effect. To test whether any potential task effects were selective for faces, I added non-facial control stimuli to the experiment (i.e., Asian and European houses)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
