Crucial for social interaction, face recognition starts in neonates and continues to mature into adolescence or early adulthood. During this maturation process, individuals develop a socially consequential bias that favors recognition memory of faces of their own race versus faces of other races. Social psychologists have long recognized this same-race bias in face recognition, but little is known about the underlying neural processes. We propose to examine the neural bases of this phenomenon's development in children from age seven through young adulthood. Informed by several lines of evidence, this application is guided by the working hypothesis that same-race bias in face recognition emerges due to the development of differential processing of same- versus other-race faces by visual cortical areas that preferentially process faces, including the fusiform """"""""face area"""""""" (FFA). ? ? The proposed studies will test this hypothesis by examining patterns of brain activation associated with perception and subsequent recognition of same- and other-race faces in children, adolescents and young adults, using behavioral and non-invasive brain imaging methods. Specifically, we will measure brain activations by whole brain fMRI during viewing of same- and other-race faces in male and female European- and African-Americans in the following age groups: 7-8,9-10,11-12,13-14,15-16,17-18,19-20. We will also administer a recognition memory test for studied faces, and an assessment of social exposure to other races, using a series of questionnaires. The degree of specialization or anatomical location of """"""""face areas"""""""" is not known in children. Therefore, we will functionally define face areas in the ventral occipito-temporal cortex and compare activation levels during viewing of same- and other-race faces and across age groups. ? ? We will also test correlations between subsequent recognition performance with activations in areas involved with face encoding, namely: the FFA, the medial temporal lobe (MTl) and prefrontal cortex. ? ? These experiments will provide the first neuroimaging data on the development of race bias in face recognition among children and adolescents. The results will further our understanding of the neural underpinnings of same-race bias in face recognition and open new avenues of research, integrating developmental neuroscience with the social sciences.
| Golarai, Golijeh; Ghahremani, Dara G; Eberhardt, Jennifer L et al. (2015) Distinct representations of configural and part information across multiple face-selective regions of the human brain. Front Psychol 6:1710 |
| Golarai, Golijeh; Ghahremani, Dara G; Whitfield-Gabrieli, S et al. (2007) Differential development of high-level visual cortex correlates with category-specific recognition memory. Nat Neurosci 10:512-22 |
