Neural perspectives on the other-race effect

Abstract

Psychological studies have long shown that human memory is superior for faces of our own-race than for faces of other-races. In this paper, we review neural studies of own- versus other-race face processing. These studies divide naturally into those focused on socioaffective aspects of the other-race effect and those directed at high-level visual processing differences. The socioaffective studies consider how subconscious bias and emotional responses affect brain areas such as the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, and parahippocampal gyrus. The visual studies focus on face-selective areas in the ventral stream, such as the fusiform face area (FFA). In both cases, factors such as experience, familiarity, social/emotional responses, cultural learning, and bias modulate the patterns of neural activity elicited in response to own- and other-race faces.