Tüttenberg Simone C, Wiese Holger
Experimental Neuropsychology Unit, Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Germany; Department of Psychology, Durham University, United Kingdom.
Department of Psychology, Durham University, United Kingdom.
Biol Psychol. 2021 Jan;158:107992. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2020.107992. Epub 2020 Nov 24.
Humans are better at recognising faces from their own vs. another ethnic background. Socio-cognitive theories of this own-race bias (ORB) propose that reduced recognition of other-race faces results from less motivation to attend to individuating information during encoding. Accordingly, individuation instructions that explain the phenomenon and instruct participants to attend to other-race faces during learning attenuate or eliminate the ORB. However, it is still unclear how exactly such instructions affect other-race face processing. We addressed this question by investigating encoding-related event-related brain potentials, contrasting neural activity of subsequently remembered and forgotten items (Dm effects). In line with socio-cognitive accounts, individuation instructions reduced the ORB. Critically, instructions increased Dm effects for other-race faces, suggesting that more processing resources were allocated to these faces during encoding. Thus, compensating for reduced experience with other-race faces is possible to some extent, but additional resources are needed to decrease difficulties resulting from a lack of perceptual expertise.
与识别来自其他种族背景的面孔相比，人类更擅长识别自己种族背景的面孔。关于这种同种族偏见（ORB）的社会认知理论认为，对其他种族面孔识别能力的下降是由于在编码过程中关注个体信息的动机较少。因此，解释该现象并指导参与者在学习过程中关注其他种族面孔的个性化指导会减弱或消除同种族偏见。然而，目前尚不清楚此类指导究竟如何影响对其他种族面孔的处理。我们通过研究与编码相关的事件相关脑电位来解决这个问题，对比后续记住和遗忘项目的神经活动（差异记忆效应）。与社会认知观点一致，个性化指导减少了同种族偏见。至关重要的是，指导增加了对其他种族面孔的差异记忆效应，这表明在编码过程中更多的处理资源被分配给了这些面孔。因此，在一定程度上弥补对其他种族面孔经验的不足是可能的，但需要额外的资源来减少因缺乏感知专业知识而产生的困难。
