Department of Psychology, Yale University, P.O. Box 208205, New Haven, CT 06520-8205, USA.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2011 Sep;6(4):526-35. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsq074. Epub 2010 Oct 28.
The 'own-age bias' in face processing suggests that the age of a face constitutes one important factor that influences attention to and memory for faces. The present experiment investigated electrophysiological correlates of processing faces of younger and older individuals. Younger participants were presented with pictures of unfamiliar younger and older faces in the context of a gender categorization task. A comparison of event-related potentials showed that early components are sensitive to faces of different ages: (i) larger positive potential peaking at 160 ms (P200) for older than younger faces at fronto-central electrodes; (ii) larger negative potential peaking at 252 ms (N200) for younger than older faces at fronto-central electrodes; (iii) larger negative-going deflection peaking at 320 ms (N250) for younger than older faces at occipito-temporal electrodes; and (iv) larger late positive potential peaking at 420 ms (LPP 420) for older than younger faces at parietal and other electrodes. We discuss similarities between the present study and a previously published study of faces of different races as suggesting involvement of comparable electrophysiological responses when differentiating between stimulus categories.
面孔加工中的“同年龄偏见”表明，面孔的年龄是影响对面孔注意和记忆的一个重要因素。本实验研究了加工年轻面孔和年长面孔的电生理相关性。在一项性别分类任务中，年轻参与者被呈现出不熟悉的年轻面孔和年长面孔的图片。对事件相关电位的比较表明，早期成分对面孔的不同年龄敏感：（i）在前额-中央电极上，年长面孔比年轻面孔的正电位（P200）更大，峰值出现在 160ms；（ii）在前额-中央电极上，年轻面孔比年长面孔的负电位（N200）更大，峰值出现在 252ms；（iii）在枕颞电极上，年轻面孔比年长面孔的负向偏转（N250）更大，峰值出现在 320ms；（iv）在后顶和其他电极上，年长面孔比年轻面孔的晚期正电位（LPP420）更大，峰值出现在 420ms。我们讨论了本研究与之前一项不同种族面孔研究的相似之处，这表明在区分刺激类别时涉及类似的电生理反应。
