Own-age Faces Research Articles

Effects of aging on face processing: An ERP study of the own-age bias with neutral and emotional faces

Older adults systematically show an enhanced N170 amplitude during the visualization of facial expressions of emotion. The present study aimed to replicate this finding, further investigating if this effect is specific to facial stimuli, present in other neural correlates of face processing, and modulated by own-age faces. To this purpose, younger (n=25; Mage=28.36), middle-aged (n=23; Mage=48.74), and older adults (n=25; Mage=67.36) performed two face/emotion identification tasks during an EEG recording. The results showed that groups did not differ regarding P100 amplitude, but older adults had increased N170 amplitude for both facial and non-facial stimuli. The event-related potentials analysed were not modulated by an own-age bias, but older faces elicited larger N170 in the Emotion Identification Task for all groups. This increased amplitude may reflect a higher ambiguity of older faces due to age-related changes in their physical features, which may elicit higher neural resources to decode. Regarding P250, older faces elicited decreased amplitudes than younger faces, which may reflect a reduced processing of the emotional content of older faces. This interpretation is consistent with the lower accuracy obtained for this category of stimuli across groups. These results have important social implications and suggest that aging may hamper the neural processing of facial expressions of emotion, especially for own-age peers.

The Role of the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex in Preferential Decisions for Own- and Other-Age Faces.

Own-age bias is a well-known bias reflecting the effects of age, and its role has been demonstrated, particularly, in face recognition. However, it remains unclear whether an own-age bias exists in facial impression formation. In the present study, we used three datasets from two published and one unpublished functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study that employed the same pleasantness rating task with fMRI scanning and preferential choice task after the fMRI to investigate whether healthy young and older participants showed own-age effects in face preference. Specifically, we employed a drift-diffusion model to elaborate the existence of own-age bias in the processes of preferential choice. The behavioral results showed higher rating scores and higher drift rate for young faces than for older faces, regardless of the ages of participants. We identified a young-age effect, but not an own-age effect. Neuroimaging results from aggregation analysis of the three datasets suggest a possibility that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) was associated with evidence accumulation of own-age faces; however, no clear evidence was provided. Importantly, we found no age-related decline in the responsiveness of the vmPFC to subjective pleasantness of faces, and both young and older participants showed a contribution of the vmPFC to the parametric representation of the subjective value of face and functional coupling between the vmPFC and ventral visual area, which reflects face preference. These results suggest that the preferential choice of face is less susceptible to the own-age bias across the lifespan of individuals.

Sorry, baby: Infant faces reach awareness more slowly than adult faces.

Past research has found an attentional bias for positive relative to neutral stimuli, with a greater attentional bias for stimuli that are more motivationally relevant. Baby faces are an example of a motivationally relevant stimulus because they elicit caretaking behaviors. Building on previous work demonstrating that baby faces capture attention, the current study used breaking continuous flash suppression (bCFS) to investigate whether infant faces are prioritized for access to awareness. On each trial of the task, a face was shown to one eye and a rapidly changing Mondrian pattern to the other. Participants were asked to report the location of the face as soon as it emerged from suppression. The faces were either infant or adult faces, presented in upright or inverted orientation. Despite evidence suggesting that infant faces might reach awareness more quickly than adult faces, the opposite was found: Adult faces reached awareness more quickly than infant faces. Moreover, a stronger face inversion effect was observed for adult versus infant faces, indicating that the shorter suppression times for adult faces were due to increased expertise with adult faces. A past bCFS study demonstrated an own-age face effect for young adults, but it left open the possibility that this effect was due to the youthful appearance of the young versus old faces. The current results rule out this possibility and provide further support for the idea that experience with faces of one's own social group facilitates the access of those faces to awareness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Recognition of younger and older faces in Korsakoff’s syndrome

The own-age bias refers to the observation that face recognition is typically superior for own-age faces compared with other-age faces. We investigated this bias in Korsakoff patients, as well as its relationship with social contact and episodic memory. Korsakoff patients and age-matched controls were exposed to older faces (own-age faces) and younger faces (other-age faces). In the recognition phase, they were invited to decide whether faces had been exposed in the encoding phase or not. Results revealed an own-age bias in control participants (i.e., high recognition of older than for younger faces), but not in Korsakoff patients (i.e., similar recognition of older and younger faces). Furthermore, both Korsakoff’s syndrome and controls reported more social contact with old than with young individuals. Recognition of younger and older faces in Korsakoff patients was significantly correlated with episodic performance but not with social contact with younger and older people. We conclude that the lack of own-age bias in Korsakoff’s syndrome is related rather to compromise of episodic memory than to diminished social contact with younger adults.

Neural target selection as a marker of real-world familiarity during search for perceptually distinct objects.

Prior studies have shown that behavioral performance is better when detecting specific familiar items based on real-world experience (e.g., an own-age face, a specific bird for bird experts), compared to less familiar items (e.g., an other-age face). These biases emerge from exposure to and interactions with initially less familiar items, which allow for better discrimination and search (e.g., finding an other-age face in a crowd). However, many broad categories in the natural environment (e.g., vintage objects, exotic fruit) contain perceptually distinct items that people can accurately search for individually, even if the objects are not as familiar. How might real-world familiarity impact search in these cases? Recent studies suggest that the N2pc event-related potential (ERP, neural marker of target selection) may be more sensitive than behavioral performance in reflecting prior knowledge, and perhaps familiarity, during visual search. In two experiments, the present study investigated the behavioral effects (Experiment 1) and N2pc effects (Experiment 2) of searching for distinct familiar (modern) versus less familiar (vintage) objects in younger adults. Experiment 1 also included a sample of older adults, who were familiar with both types of objects. Overall, the behavioral results did not reveal robust differences in searching for modern versus vintage objects. However, the N2pc in younger adults was present when searching for modern objects, but not for vintage objects. The N2pc results suggest that this neural marker may be more sensitive than behavioral measures in reflecting familiarity from real-world experiences with object categories.

Stable middle-aged face recognition: No moderation of the own-age bias across contexts.

The own-age bias (OAB) has been proposed to be caused by perceptual expertise and/or social-cognitive mechanisms. Investigations into the role of social cognition have, however, yielded mixed results. One reason for this might be the tendency for research to focus on the OAB in young adults, between young and older adult faces where other-age individuation experience is low. To explore whether social-cognitive manipulations may be successful when observers have sufficient other-age individuation experience, we examined biases involving middle-aged other-age faces and the influence of a context manipulation. Across four experiments, young adult participants were presented with middle-aged faces alongside young or older adult faces to remember. We predicted that in contexts where middle-aged faces were positioned as other-age faces (alongside young adult faces), recognition performance would be worse than when they were positioned as relative own-age faces (alongside older adult faces). However, the context manipulations did not moderate middle age face recognition. This suggests that past findings that context does not change other-age face recognition holds for other-age faces for which observers have higher individuation experience. These findings are consistent with a perceptual expertise account of the OAB but more investigation of the generality of these results is required.

Emotional reactivity and regulation in 5- to 8-year-old children: An ERP study of own-age face processing

The school-age years is a period of increasing social interaction with peers and development of emotion regulation in facilitating that interaction. This study was an investigation of the neural correlates of emotional reactivity and reappraisal in typically developing school-age children elicited by threatening facial expressions of same-aged peers. This experimental paradigm is novel in eliciting event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to social stimuli that are ecologically valid to the everyday life of children. ERPs of 5- to 8-year-old children (N = 41, 18 females) were elicited by threatening (i.e., angry and fearful) and neutral child facial expressions, which were preceded by audio contextual cues. Three conditions differed in audio-image pairing: neutral context-neutral expression (neutral condition), negative context-threatening expression (threat condition), and reappraisal context-threatening expression (reappraisal condition). In addition, parental reporting of childhood temperament was collected to determine if elicited ERP morphologies were associated with temperamental dimensions of negative affect, extraversion, and effortful control. Elicitation of the P100 and N170 did not largely differ between conditions; however, amplitude of the late positive potential (LPP), a marker of heightened emotional reactivity and attention, was greater for threatening faces relative to neutral faces. During the reappraisal condition, no differences in ERP activity was observed compared to the threat condition. Neural substrates of emotional reactivity to social threat from peers were evident; however, the lack of ERP modulation facilitating reappraisal and the lack of strong associations between ERP morphology and temperamental dimensions is indicative of heterogeneity in LPP elicitation underlying emotion regulation in children.

Amygdala functional network during recognition of own-age vs. other-age faces in younger and older adults

Facial cues, such as a person's age, provide important information for social interactions. Processing such facial cues can be affected by observer bias. However, there is currently no consensus regarding how the brain is processing facial cues related to age, and if facial age processing changes as a function of the age of the observer (i.e., own-age bias). The primary study aim was to investigate functional networks involved in processing own-age vs. other-age faces among younger and older adults and determine how emotional expression of the face modulates own-age vs. other-age face processing. The secondary study aim was to examine the relation between higher social cognitive processes (i.e., empathy) and modulation of brain activity by facial age and emotional expression. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) younger and older participants were asked to recognize happy, angry, and neutral expressions in own-age and other-age faces. Functional connectivity analyses with the amygdala as seed showed that for own-age faces both age groups recruited a network of regions including the anterior cingulate and anterior insula that was involved in empathy and detection of salient information. Brain-behavior analyses furthermore showed that empathic responses in younger, but not in older, participants were positively correlated with engagement of the medial prefrontal cortex during processing of angry own-age faces. These findings identify the neurobehavioral correlates of facial age processing, and its modulation by emotion expression, and directly link facial cue processing to higher-order social cognitive functioning.

The relationship between visual search and categorization of own- and other-age faces.

Young adult participants are faster to detect young adult faces in crowds of infant and child faces than vice versa. These findings have been interpreted as evidence for more efficient attentional capture by own-age than other-age faces, but could alternatively reflect faster rejection of other-age than own-age distractors, consistent with the previously reported other-age categorization advantage: faster categorization of other-age than own-age faces. Participants searched for own-age faces in other-age backgrounds or vice versa. Extending the finding to different other-age groups, young adult participants were faster to detect young adult faces in both early adolescent (Experiment 1) and older adult backgrounds (Experiment 2). To investigate whether the own-age detection advantage could be explained by faster categorization and rejection of other-age background faces, participants in experiments 3 and 4 also completed an age categorization task. Relatively faster categorization of other-age faces was related to relatively faster search through other-age backgrounds on target absent trials but not target present trials. These results confirm that other-age faces are more quickly categorized and searched through and that categorization and search processes are related; however, this correlational approach could not confirm or reject the contribution of background face processing to the own-age detection advantage.

Attention modulates the own-age bias in face recognition

Numerous studies have found that participants are more accurate at remembering faces from their own-age group rather than other-age group (the own-age bias, OAB, in face recognition). An experience-based account has suggested that more extensive experience on own-age faces than other-race faces causes this bias. There is also a socio-cognitive account, which suggested that individuals have stronger motivation to own-age than other-age faces. However, some recent studies suggested that differential allocation of attention to own-age versus other-age faces may play a role in the underlying process of the OAB. The aim of this study is to investigate whether and how attention affects the own-age bias in face recognition and memory. In Experiment 1, we tested the roles of attention by comparing task performance in focused versus divided attention conditions in two experiments. Firstly, in Experiment 1a, we manipulated participants’ attention by asking or not asking participants to perform a visual interference task when they were performing a face recognition task. Secondly, in Experiment 1b, we adopted auditory interference task to manipulate participants’ attention. The results showed that (i) the OAB emerged in the subsequent memory task in focused attention condition but not in divided attention condition; and (ii) participants’ recognition of own-age faces declined more in divided attention condition than in focused attention condition. Why own-age bias disappeared under a divided attention condition and the divided attention condition interfered memory task performance only for own-age faces? Previous studies suggested that participants tend to adopt more holistic processing for their own-age faces than other-age faces. Is it possible that the divided attention has interfered the holistic processing, and thus own-age faces cannot be processed holistically? We tested this possibility in Experiment 2. Using the same attention manipulation technique in Experiment 1, in Experiment 2, we compared the composite face effect (CFE, a marker of holistic face processing) of the own-age and other-age faces in focused attention versus divided attention condition. The results showed that (i) CFE emerged for the own-age faces in the focused attention condition but not in the divided attention condition; and (ii) we failed to observe CFE in other-age faces for both attention conditions. In summary, we found (i) divided attention, relative to focused attention, can eliminate the OAB in face recognition by reducing the performance of the own-age face recognition; and (ii) the holistic processing of the own-age faces is impaired by the divided attention so that the own-age face recognition performance is reduced and the OAB of face recognition emerged.

ERP evidence for own-age effects on late stages of processing sad faces.

Faces convey important information on interaction partners, such as their emotional state and age. Faces of the same age are, according to recent research, preferentially processed. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the neural processes underlying this own-age effect are influenced by the emotional expression of the face, and to explore possible explanations such as the frequency or quality of contact to own-age versus other-age groups. Event-related potentials were recorded while 19 younger (18-30 years) and 19 older (64-86 years) observers watched younger and older sad and happy faces. Sad but not happy faces elicited higher late positive potential amplitudes for own-age than for other-age faces. This own-age effect was significant for older, but not for younger, observers, and correlated with the quality of contact with the own-age versus the other-age group. This pattern suggests that sad own-age faces are motivationally more relevant.

Children view own-age faces qualitatively differently to other-age faces

ABSTRACTLike most own-group biases in face recognition, the own-age bias (OAB) is thought to be based either on perceptual expertise or socio-cognitive motivational mechanisms [Wolff, N., Kemter, K., Schweinberger, S. R., & Wiese, H. (2013). What drives social in-group biases in face recognition memory? ERP evidence from the own-gender bias. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. doi:10.1093/scan/nst024]. The present study employed a recognition paradigm with eye-tracking in order to assess whether participants actively viewed faces of their own-age differently to that of other-age faces. The results indicated a significant OAB (superior recognition for own-age relative to other-age faces), provided that they were upright, indicative of expertise being employed for the recognition of own-age faces. However, the eye-tracking results indicate that viewing other-age faces was qualitatively different to the viewing of own-age faces, with more nose fixations for other-age faces. These results are interpreted as supporting the socio-cognitive model of the OAB.

Visual scanning behavior is related to recognition performance for own- and other-age faces.

It is well-established that our recognition ability is enhanced for faces belonging to familiar categories, such as own-race faces and own-age faces. Recent evidence suggests that, for race, the recognition bias is also accompanied by different visual scanning strategies for own- compared to other-race faces. Here, we tested the hypothesis that these differences in visual scanning patterns extend also to the comparison between own and other-age faces and contribute to the own-age recognition advantage. Participants (young adults with limited experience with infants) were tested in an old/new recognition memory task where they encoded and subsequently recognized a series of adult and infant faces while their eye movements were recorded. Consistent with findings on the other-race bias, we found evidence of an own-age bias in recognition which was accompanied by differential scanning patterns, and consequently differential encoding strategies, for own-compared to other-age faces. Gaze patterns for own-age faces involved a more dynamic sampling of the internal features and longer viewing time on the eye region compared to the other regions of the face. This latter strategy was extensively employed during learning (vs. recognition) and was positively correlated to discriminability. These results suggest that deeply encoding the eye region is functional for recognition and that the own-age bias is evident not only in differential recognition performance, but also in the employment of different sampling strategies found to be effective for accurate recognition.

Effects of visual expertise on a novel eye-size illusion: Implications for holistic face processing

We examined the effect of visual experience on the magnitude of a novel eye-size illusion: when the size of a face’s frame is increased or decreased but eye size is unchanged, observers judge the size of the eyes to be different from that in the original face frame. In the current study, we asked Chinese and Caucasian participants to judge eye size in different pairs of faces and measured the magnitude of the illusion when the faces were own- or other-age (adult vs. infant faces) and when the faces were own- or other-race (Chinese vs. Caucasian faces). We found an other-age effect and an other-race effect with the eye-size illusion: The illusion was more pronounced with own-race and own-age faces than with other-race and other-age faces. These findings taken together suggest that visual experience with faces influences the magnitude of this novel illusion. Extensive experience with certain face categories strengthens the illusion in the context of these categories, but lack of it reduces the magnitude of the illusion. Our results further imply that holistic processing may play an important role in engendering the eye-size illusion.

Own-race and own-age biases facilitate visual awareness of faces under interocular suppression.

The detection of a face in a visual scene is the first stage in the face processing hierarchy. Although all subsequent, more elaborate face processing depends on the initial detection of a face, surprisingly little is known about the perceptual mechanisms underlying face detection. Recent evidence suggests that relatively hard-wired face detection mechanisms are broadly tuned to all face-like visual patterns as long as they respect the typical spatial configuration of the eyes above the mouth. Here, we qualify this notion by showing that face detection mechanisms are also sensitive to face shape and facial surface reflectance properties. We used continuous flash suppression (CFS) to render faces invisible at the beginning of a trial and measured the time upright and inverted faces needed to break into awareness. Young Caucasian adult observers were presented with faces from their own race or from another race (race experiment) and with faces from their own age group or from another age group (age experiment). Faces matching the observers’ own race and age group were detected more quickly. Moreover, the advantage of upright over inverted faces in overcoming CFS, i.e., the face inversion effect (FIE), was larger for own-race and own-age faces. These results demonstrate that differences in face shape and surface reflectance influence access to awareness and configural face processing at the initial detection stage. Although we did not collect data from observers of another race or age group, these findings are a first indication that face detection mechanisms are shaped by visual experience with faces from one’s own social group. Such experience-based fine-tuning of face detection mechanisms may equip in-group faces with a competitive advantage for access to conscious awareness.

Holistic face processing of own- and other-age faces in young and older adults: ERP evidence from the composite face task

Participants more accurately remember own-age relative to other-age faces (own-age bias, OAB). The present study tested whether this effect is related to more efficient holistic processing of own-age faces. Young adult and older participants performed a composite face task with young and old faces, in which they indicated whether the upper half of two subsequent composite faces was identical or not. The lower half of the second face was always different, and face halves were horizontally misaligned in 50% of the trials. Both participant groups were more efficient to correctly identify same upper halves in the misaligned relative to the aligned condition, and this composite face effect (CFE), a marker of holistic face processing, was stronger for young faces. Analysis of event-related potentials revealed strong misalignment effects in the N170, which were more pronounced for young faces in both groups. Critically, in the subsequent N250r a stronger misalignment effect for young faces was detected in young participants only. Since N250r may reflect the facilitated access of a perceptual representation of a previously presented face, this finding is interpreted to reflect young participants' more efficient representation of own-age faces as a whole, which may contribute to their OAB in memory.

Aging Faces and Aging Perceivers: Young and Older Adults are Less Sensitive to Deviations from Normality in Older Than in Young Adult Faces

Past studies examining the other-age effect, the phenomenon in which own-age faces are recognized more accurately than other-age faces, are limited in number and report inconsistent results. Here we examine whether the perceptual system is preferentially tuned to differences among young adult faces. In experiment 1 young (18-25 years) and older adult (63-87 years) participants were shown young and older face pairs in which one member of each pair was undistorted and the other had compressed or expanded features. Participants indicated which member of each pair was more normal and which was more expanded. Both age groups were more accurate when tested with young compared with older faces-but only when judging normality. In experiment 2 we tested a separate group of young adults on the same two tasks but with upright and inverted face pairs to examine the differential pattern of results between the normality and discrimination tasks. Inversion impaired performance on the normality task but not the discrimination task and eliminated the young adult advantage in the normality task. Collectively, these results suggest that the face processing system is optimized for young adult faces and that abundant experience with older faces later in life does not reverse this perceptual tuning.

Cross-age effect in recognition performance and memory monitoring for faces.

The cross-age effect refers to the finding of better memory for own- than other-age faces. We examined 3 issues about this effect: (1) Does it extend to the ability to monitor the likely accuracy of memory judgments for young and old faces? (2) Does it apply to source information that is associated with young and old faces? And (3) what is a likely mechanism underlying the cross-age effect? In Experiment 1, young and older adults viewed young and old faces appearing in different contexts. Young adults exhibited a cross-age effect in their recognition of faces and in their memory-monitoring performance for these faces. Older adults, by contrast, showed no age-of-face effects. Experiment 2 examined whether young adults' cross-age effect depends on or is independent of encoding a mixture of young and old faces. Young adults encoded either a mixture of young and old faces, a set of all young faces, or a set of all old faces. In the mixed-list condition we replicated our finding of young adults' superior memory for own-age faces; in the pure-list conditions, however, there were absolutely no differences in performance between young and old faces. The fact that the pure-list design abolishes the cross-age effect supports social-cognitive theories of this phenomenon.

Daily-life contact affects the own-age bias and neural correlates of face memory in elderly participants

Previous studies revealed consistently enhanced recognition memory for same- as compared to other-age faces (own-age bias, OAB) in young adults, but inconsistent results in elderly participants. To resolve these discrepancies, we examined recognition memory and event-related potentials (ERPs) for young and old faces in young participants and two elderly groups, who either reported high or low degrees of daily contact with elderly relative to younger persons. As expected, young adults showed more accurate memory for young versus old faces. While no OAB was found in old/low contact participants, old/high contact participants were more accurate with old versus young faces. ERPs in young adults revealed a parietal old/new effect from 500 to 800ms (hits>correct rejections) for young but not old faces. Whereas no old/new effect was seen in the old/low contact group, the old/high contact participants exhibited a prominent reversed old/new effect (hits<correct rejections) for old faces. These results suggest that contact may account for earlier discrepant results with regard to the OAB in elderly participants. A behavioral OAB in elderly participants may depend on high degrees of contact towards old people. The finding of ERP old/new effects specific to own-age faces suggests enhanced recollection of study phase detail in young participants, whereas it may reflect increased engagement in processes aiming at compensating for a deficit in recollection in elderly participants.

Kids ignoring adults, and adults ignoring kids: An own-age face bias in attentional gaze cueing

Kids ignoring adults, and adults ignoring kids: An own-age face bias in attentional gaze cueing