Abstract
In two experiments, event-related potentials were used to examine the effects of attentional focus on the processing of race and gender cues from faces. When faces were still the focal stimuli, the processing of the faces at a level deeper than the social category by requiring a personality judgment resulted in early attention to race and gender, with race effects as early as 120 msec. This time course corresponds closely to those in past studies in which participants explicitly attended to target race and gender (Ito &Urland, 2003). However, a similar processing goal, coupled with a more complex stimulus array, delayed social category effects until 190 msec, in accord with the effects of complexity on visual attention. In addition, the N170 typically linked with structural face encoding was modulated by target race, but not by gender, when faces were perceived in a homogenous context consisting only of faces. This suggests that when basic-level distinctions between faces and nonfaces are irrelevant, the mechanism previously associated only with structural encoding can also be sensitive to features used to differentiate among faces.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., & Damasio, H. (1994). Impaired recognition of emotion in facial expressions following bilateral damage to the human amygdala. Nature, 372, 669–672.
Balconi, M., & Pozzoli, U. (2003). Face-selective processing and the effect of pleasant and unpleasant emotional expressions on ERP correlates. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 49, 67–74.
Bentin, S., Allison, T., Puce, A., Perez, E., & McCarthy, G. (1996). Electrophysiological studies of face perception in humans. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 8, 551–565.
Bentin, S., & Deouell, L. Y. (2000). Structural encoding and identification in face processing: ERP evidence for separate mechanisms. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 17, 35–54.
Brewer, M. B. (1988). A dual process model of impression formation. In T. K. Srull & R. S. Wyer (Eds.), Advances in social cognition (Vol. 1, pp. 1–36). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Bruce, V., & Young, A. W. (1986). A theoretical perspective for understanding face recognition. British Journal of Psychology, 77, 305–327.
Caharel, S., Poiroux, S., & Bernard, C. (2002). ERPs associated with familiarity and degree of familiarity during face recognition. International Journal of Neuroscience, 112, 1499–1512.
Caldara, R., Rossion, B., Bovet, P., & Hauert, C.-A. (2004). Eventrelated potentials and time course of the “other-race” face classification advantage. NeuroReport, 15, 905–910.
Caldara, R., Thut, G., Servoir, P., Michel, C. M., Bovet, P., & Renault, B. (2003). Face versus non-face object perception and the “other-race” effect: A spatio-temporal event-related potential study. Clinical Neurophysiology, 114, 515–528.
Carretié, L., Martín-Loeches, M., Hinojosa, J. A., & Mercado, F. (2001). Emotion and attention interaction studied through eventrelated potentials. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 13, 1109–1128.
Carretié, L., Mercado, F., Tapia, M., & Hinojosa, J. A. (2001). Emotion, attention, and the “negativity bias,” studied through event-related potentials. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 41, 75–85.
Czigler, I., & Geczy, I. (1996). Event-related potential correlates of color selection and lexical decision: Hierarchical processing or late selection? International Journal of Psychophysiology, 22, 67–84.
Donchin, E. (1981). Surprise! … Surprise? Psychophysiology, 18, 493–513.
Eimer, M. (1997). An event-related potential (ERP) study of transient and sustained visual attention to color and form. Biological Psychology, 44, 143–160.
Eimer, M. (2000). Event-related brain potentials distinguish processing stages involved in face perception and recognition. Clinical Neurophysiology, 111, 694–705.
Eimer, M., Holmes, A., & McGlone, F. (2003). The role of spatial attention in the processing of facial expression: An ERP study of rapid brain responses to six basic emotions. Cognitive, Affective, &Behavioral Neuroscience, 3, 97–110.
Fiske, S. T., & Neuberg, S. L. (1990). A continuum of impression formation, from category-based to individuating processes: Influences of information and motivation on attention and interpretation. Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 23, pp. 1–74). New York: Academic Press.
Golby, A. J., Gabrieli, J. D. E., Chiao, J. Y., & Eberhardt, J. L. (2001). Differential responses in the fusiform region to same-race and other-race faces. Nature Neuroscience, 4, 845–850.
Hoffman, E. A., & Haxby, J. V. (2000). Distinct representations of eye gaze and identity in the distributed human neural system for face perception. Nature Neuroscience, 3, 80–84.
Ito, T. A., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2000). Electrophysiological evidence of implicit and explicit categorization processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 36, 660–676.
Ito, T. A., Thompson, E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2004). Tracking the timecourse of social perception: The effects of racial cues on eventrelated brain potentials. Personality &Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1267–1280.
Ito, T. A., & Urland, G. R. (2003). Race and gender on the brain: Electrocortical measures of attention to race and gender of multiply categorizable individuals. Journal of Personality &Social Psychology, 85, 616–626.
Kanwisher, N., McDermott, J., & Chun, M. M. (1997). The fusiform face area: A module in human extrastriate cortex specialized for face perception. Journal of Neuroscience, 17, 4302–4311.
Kenemans, J. L., Kok, A., & Smulders, F. T. Y. (1993). Event-related potentials to conjunctions of spatial frequency and orientation as a function of stimulus parameters and response requirements. Electroencephalography &Clinical Neurophysiology, 88, 51–63.
Levin, D. T. (2000). Race as a visual feature: Using visual search and perceptual discrimination tasks to understand face categories and the cross-race recognition deficit. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 129, 559–574.
Lewin, C., & Herlitz, A. (2002). Sex differences in face recognition: Women’s faces make the difference. Brain &Cognition, 50, 121–128.
Liu, J., Harris, A., & Kanwisher, N. (2002). Stages of processing in face perception: An MEG study. Nature Neuroscience, 5, 910–916.
Macrae, C. N., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2000). Social cognition: Thinking categorically about others. Annual Review of Psychology, 51, 93–120.
Macrae, C. N., Bodenhausen, G. V., Milne, A. B., Thorn, T. M. J., & Castelli, L. (1997). On the activation of social stereotypes: The moderating role of processing objectives. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 33, 471–489.
McKelvie, S. J. (1981). Sex differences in memory for faces. Journal of Psychology, 107, 109–125.
McKelvie, S. J., Standing, L., St. Jean, D., & Law, J. (1993). Gender differences in recognition memory for faces and cars: Evidence for the interest hypothesis. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 31, 447–448.
Morris, J. S., Frith, C. D., & Perrett, D. I. (1996). A differential neural response in the human amygdala to fearful and happy facial expressions. Nature, 383, 812–815.
Mouchetant-Rostaing, Y., & Giard, M. H. (2003). Electrophysiological correlates of age and gender perception on human faces. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15, 900–910.
Mouchetant-Rostaing, Y., Giard, M. H., Bentin, S., Aguera, P. E., & Pernier, J. (2000). Neurophysiological correlates of face gender processing in humans. European Journal of Neuroscience, 12, 303–310.
Näätänen, R., & Gaillard, A. W. K. (1983). The orientating reflex and the N2 deflection of the event-related potential (ERP). In A.W. K. Gaillard & W. Ritter (Eds.), Tutorials in ERP research: Endogenous components (pp. 119–141). New York: North-Holland.
Pizzagalli, D., Regard, M., & Lehmann, D. (1999). Rapid emotional face processing in the human right and left brain hemispheres: An ERP study. NeuroReport, 10, 2691–2698.
Rees, G., & Lavie, N. (2001). What can functional imaging reveal about the role of attention in visual awareness? Neuropsychologia, 39, 1343–1353.
Semlitsch, H. V., Anderer, P., Schuster, P., & Presslich, O. (1986). A solution for reliable and valid reduction of ocular artifacts, applied to the P300 ERP. Psychophysiology, 23, 695–703.
Smith, N. K., Cacioppo, J. T., Larsen, J. T., & Chartrand, T. L. (2003). May I have your attention, please: Electrocortical responses to positive and negative stimuli. Neuropsychologia, 41, 171–183.
Stroessner, S. J. (1996). Social categorization by race or sex: Effects of perceived non-normalcy on response times. Social Cognition, 14, 247–276.
Tanaka, J. W., & Curran, T. (2001). A neural basis for expert object recognition. Psychological Science, 12, 43–47.
Wheeler, M. E., & Fiske, S. T. (2005). Controlling racial prejudice: Social-cognitive goals affect amygdala and stereotype activation. Psychological Science, 16, 56–63.
Wijers, A., Mulder, G., Okita, T., Mulder, L. J. M., & Scheffers, M. (1989). Attention to color: An analysis of selection, controlled search, and motor activation, using event-related potentials. Psychophysiology, 26, 89–109.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grants 1R03 MH61327 and 1R21 MH66739 to T.A.I. and by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to G.R.U.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ito, T.A., Urland, G.R. The influence of processing objectives on the perception of faces: An ERP study of race and gender perception. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience 5, 21–36 (2005). https://doi.org/10.3758/CABN.5.1.21
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/CABN.5.1.21