title: The other face of the other-race effect: an fMRI investigation of the other-race face categorization advantage.
abstract: The present study was the first to use the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) methodology to investigate the neural correlates of race categorization of own- and other-race faces. We found that Chinese participants categorized the race of Caucasian faces more accurately and faster than that of Chinese faces, replicating the robust effect of the other-race categorization advantage. Regions of interest (ROI) analyses revealed greater neural activations when participants were categorizing own-race faces than other-race faces in the bilateral ventral occipito-temporal cortex (VOT) such as the fusiform face areas (FFAs) and the occipital face areas (OFAs). Within the left FFA, there was also a significant negative correlation between the behavioral difference of own- and other-race face categorization accuracy and the activation difference between categorizing own- and other-race faces. Whole brain analyses showed that categorizing own-race faces induced greater activations in the right medial frontal cortex (MFC) and right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) than categorizing other-race faces. Psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analyses revealed that the frontal cortical regions interacted more strongly with the posterior VOT during the categorization of own-race faces than that of other-race faces. Overall, our findings suggest that relative to the categorization of other-race faces, more cortical resources are engaged during the categorization of own-race faces with which we have a higher level of processing expertise. This increased involvement of cortical neural sources perhaps serves to provide more in-depth processing of own-race faces (such as individuation), which in turn paradoxically results in the behavioral other-race categorization advantage.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Lu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Jiangang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Zhe
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Ling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Liezhong
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ge
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Kang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D044466:Asian People; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011601:Psychophysics; D044469:Racial Groups; D011930:Reaction Time; D044465:White People; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen