Race and early face-sensitive event-related potentials in children and adults

Event-related potential correlates of implicit processing of own- and other-race faces in children

Human adults typically experience difficulties in recognizing and discriminating individual faces belonging to racial groups other than their own. The origin of this "other-race" effect is set in infancy, but the understanding of its developmental course is fragmented. We aimed to access the mechanisms of the other-race effect in childhood by unraveling the neural time course of own- and other-race face processing during a masked priming paradigm. White 6- and 7-year-old children (N = 19) categorized fully visible Asian (other-race) or White (own-race) target faces according to gender. Target faces were preceded by masked same-identity or different-identity prime faces, matching the target for race and gender. We showed an early priming effect on the N100 component, with larger amplitude to different-face pairs than to same-face pairs, and a later race effect on the N200 component, with larger amplitude to own-race face pairs than to other-race face pairs. Critically, race did not interact with priming at any processing stage (P100, N100, P200, N200, or P300). Our results suggest that race could have a temporally limited impact on face processing and that the implicit and unconscious identity processing of own- and other-race faces could be similar in 6- and 7-year-olds, depicting an immature other-race effect during childhood.

Neural timing of the other-race effect across the lifespan: A review

Face race influences the way we process faces, so that faces of a different ethnic group are processed for identity less efficiently than faces of one's ethnic group - a phenomenon known as the Other-Race Effect (ORE). Although widely replicated, the ORE is still poorly characterized in terms of its development and the underlying mechanisms. In the last two decades, the Event-Related Potential (ERP) technique has brought insight into the mechanisms underlying the ORE and has demonstrated potential to clarify its development. Here, we review the ERP evidence for a differential neural processing of own-race and other-race faces throughout the lifespan. In infants, race-related processing differences emerged at the N290 and P400 (structural encoding) stages. In children, race affected the P100 (early processing, attention) perceptual stage and was implicitly encoded at the N400 (semantic processing) stage. In adults, processing difficulties for other-race faces emerged at the N170 (structural encoding), P200 (configuration processing) and N250 (accessing individual representations) perceptual stages. Early in processing, race was implicitly encoded from other-race faces (N100, P200 attentional biases) and in-depth processing preferentially applied to own-race faces (N200 attentional bias). Encoding appeared less efficient (Dm effects) and retrieval less recollection-based (old/new effects) for other-race faces. Evidence admits the contribution of perceptual, attentional, and motivational processes to the development and functioning of the ORE, offering no conclusive support for perceptual or socio-cognitive accounts. Cross-racial and non-cross-racial studies provided convergent evidence. Future research would need to include less represented ethnic populations and the developmental population.