New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2011 Oct;23(10):3153-61. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_00014. Epub 2011 Mar 31.
We examined the relation between neural activity reflecting early face perception processes and automatic and controlled responses to race. Participants completed a sequential evaluative priming task, in which two-tone images of Black faces, White faces, and cars appeared as primes, followed by target words categorized as pleasant or unpleasant, while encephalography was recorded. Half of these participants were alerted that the task assessed racial prejudice and could reveal their personal bias ("alerted" condition). To assess face perception processes, the N170 component of the ERP was examined. For all participants, stronger automatic pro-White bias was associated with larger N170 amplitudes to Black than White faces. For participants in the alerted condition only, larger N170 amplitudes to Black versus White faces were also associated with less controlled processing on the word categorization task. These findings suggest that preexisting racial attitudes affect early face processing and that situational factors moderate the link between early face processing and behavior.
我们研究了反映早期面孔知觉过程的神经活动与对种族的自动和控制反应之间的关系。参与者完成了一个连续的评价启动任务，其中黑人、白人面孔和汽车的双色调图像作为启动，随后出现被归类为愉快或不愉快的目标词，同时记录脑电图。这些参与者中有一半被告知任务评估种族偏见，并可能揭示他们的个人偏见（“提醒”条件）。为了评估面孔知觉过程，检查了 ERP 的 N170 成分。对于所有参与者，对黑人面孔的自动白人偏见越强，与白人面孔相比，N170 振幅越大。仅对于处于提醒条件的参与者，与白人面孔相比，黑人面孔的 N170 振幅越大，与单词分类任务的控制处理越少相关。这些发现表明，预先存在的种族态度会影响早期的面孔处理，并且情境因素会调节早期面孔处理与行为之间的联系。
