Own-race faces capture attention faster than other-race faces: evidence from response time and the N2pc
Date
2015-06-04Author
Zhou, Guomei
Cheng, Zhijie
Yue, Zhenzhu
Tredoux, Colin
He, Jibo
Wang, Ling
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Zhou, Guomei; Cheng, Zhijie; Yue, Zhenzhu; Tredoux, Colin; He, Jibo; Wang, Ling. 2015. Own-race faces capture attention faster than other-race faces: evidence from response time and the N2pc. PLOS ONE, vol. 10:no. 6
Abstract
Studies have shown that people are better at recognizing human faces from their own-race than from other-races, an effect often termed the Own-Race Advantage. The current study investigates whether there is an Own-Race Advantage in attention and its neural correlates. Participants were asked to search for a human face among animal faces. Experiment 1 showed a classic Own-Race Advantage in response time both for Chinese and Black South African participants. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), Experiment 2 showed a similar Own-Race Advantage in response time for both upright faces and inverted faces. Moreover, the latency of N2pc for own-race faces was earlier than that for other-race faces. These results suggested that own-race faces capture attention more efficiently than other-race faces.
Description
Open Access peer reviewed research article.