Abstract
People have a memory advantage for faces that belong to the same group, for example, that attend the same university or have the same personality type. Faces from such in-group members are assumed to receive more attention during memory encoding and are therefore recognized more accurately. Here we use event-related potentials related to memory encoding and retrieval to investigate the neural correlates of the in-group memory advantage. Using the minimal group procedure, subjects were classified based on a bogus personality test as belonging to one of two personality types. While the electroencephalogram was recorded, subjects studied and recognized faces supposedly belonging to the subject’s own and the other personality type. Subjects recognized in-group faces more accurately than out-group faces but the effect size was small. Using the individual behavioral in-group memory advantage in multivariate analyses of covariance, we determined neural correlates of the in-group advantage. During memory encoding (300 to 1000 ms after stimulus onset), subjects with a high in-group memory advantage elicited more positive amplitudes for subsequently remembered in-group than out-group faces, showing that in-group faces received more attention and elicited more neural activity during initial encoding. Early during memory retrieval (300 to 500 ms), frontal brain areas were more activated for remembered in-group faces indicating an early detection of group membership. Surprisingly, the parietal old/new effect (600 to 900 ms) thought to indicate recollection processes differed between in-group and out-group faces independent from the behavioral in-group memory advantage. This finding suggests that group membership affects memory retrieval independent of memory performance. Comparisons with a previous study on the other-race effect, another memory phenomenon influenced by social classification of faces, suggested that the in-group memory advantage is dominated by top-down processing whereas the other-race effect is also influenced by extensive perceptual experience.
Highlights
When a friend introduces us to a stranger, there are multiple factors that influence how well we will remember the newly learned face
There was no difference between in-group and out-group faces in attractiveness ratings made during memory encoding, ps ..20; nor where there reaction time differences in these ratings, ps
Post-tests for each level of the factor frontal-parietal showed that old/new effects for out-group faces were more positive over frontal-polar regions (FPM in Panel A of Fig. 2), F(1,43) = 6.98, p = .022, whereas old/new effects for in-group faces tended to be more positive over parietal regions (PM in Panel A of Fig. 2), F(1,43) = 2.81, p =
Summary
When a friend introduces us to a stranger, there are multiple factors that influence how well we will remember the newly learned face. There are other physiognomic features that can bias face recognition like age or sex In addition to these clearly visible characteristics, recent research has shown that belonging to the same group as an encountered person affects face memory in a similar way: faces from people of the same group (or in-group) are recognized more accurately than faces from people of another group (or out-group) [3,4,5,6,7]. We investigate the neural processes that underlie the in-group memory advantage that arises from mere group membership. For this purpose, we used the minimal group procedure [12]
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