title: Interactions between the perception of age and ethnicity in faces: an event-related potential study.
abstract: Face perception models propose that different facial attributes are processed by anatomically distinct neural pathways that partially overlap. Whether these attributes interact functionally is an open question. Our goal was to determine if there are interactions between age and ethnicity processing and, if so, at what temporal epoch these interactions are evident. We monitored event-related potentials on electroencephalography while subjects categorized faces by age or ethnicity in two conditions: a baseline in which the other of these two properties not being categorized was held constant and an interference condition in which it also varied, as modelled after the Garner interference paradigm. We found that, when participants were categorizing faces by age, variations in ethnicity increased the amplitude of the right face-selective N170 component. When subjects were categorizing faces by ethnicity, variations in age did not alter the N170. We concluded that there is an asymmetric pattern of influence between age and ethnicity on early face-specific stages of visual processing, which has parallels with behavioural evidence of asymmetric interactions between identity and expression processing of faces.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Medicine (Neurology) , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.|b Human Vision and Eye Movement Laboratory , VGH Eye Care Centre , third floor, 2550 Willow Street, Vancouver , BC V5Z-3N9 , Canada.|c Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.
authors.forename: Esther
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Alonso-Prieto
authors.affiliation: a Department of Medicine (Neurology) , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.|c Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.
authors.forename: Ipek
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Oruç
authors.affiliation: a Department of Medicine (Neurology) , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.|c Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rubino
authors.affiliation: a Department of Medicine (Neurology) , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.|c Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: d Department of Psychology , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.
authors.forename: Todd
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Handy
authors.affiliation: a Department of Medicine (Neurology) , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.|c Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.|d Department of Psychology , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.
authors.forename: Jason J S
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Barton
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000375:Aging; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005006:Ethnicity; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005145:Face / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009434:Neural Pathways; D044469:Racial Groups; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Garner; age; ethnicity; face perception; interference