The role of age and ethnic group in face recognition memory: ERP evidence from a combined own-age and own-race bias study.
Young adult participants are known to more accurately remember faces from both their own age- and ethnic groups. The present study examined combined effects of such own-age and own-race biases by asking young Caucasian participants to learn and remember elderly and young Caucasian as well as elderly and young Asian faces. Neural correlates were assessed by recording event-related potentials (ERPs). Behavioral results indicated both an own-race bias for young but not elderly faces, and an own-age bias for Caucasian but not Asian faces. Importantly, no additional decrease in recognition memory for other-race/other-age faces was detected. An early parietal ERP old/new effect (300-500 ms) was most pronounced for young Caucasian "in-group" faces, while the old/new effect in a later time window (500-800 ms) was generally larger for own- as compared to other-race faces. In conclusion, these findings suggest at least partly different neural processes to accompany the own-race and own-age biases.
DFG Research Unit Person Perception & Department of General Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Institute of Psychology, Am Steiger 3/1, 07743 Jena, Germany. holger.wiese@uni-jena.de
Holger
H
Wiese
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D015982:Bias; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005006:Ethnicity; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult