The own-age bias in face memory is unrelated to differences in attention—Evidence from event-related potentials

Abstract

2015) 'The own-age bias in face memory is unrelated to di erences in attention Evidence from event-related brain potentials.', Cognitive, a ective, and behavioral neuroscience., 15 (1). pp. 180-194. Further information on publisher's website:https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-014-0306-7Publisher's copyright statement:The nal publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-014-0306-7Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractParticipants are more accurate at remembering faces from their own relative to a different age group (own-age bias, OAB). A recent socio-cognitive account suggests that differential allocation of attention to old versus young faces underlies this phenomenon. Critically, empirical evidence for a direct relationship between attention to own-versus other-age faces and the OAB in memory is lacking. To fill this gap, we tested the role of attention in three different experimental paradigms, and additionally analyzed event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Experiment 1 compared learning of old and young faces during focused versus divided attention, but revealed an equivalent OAB in subsequent memory for both attention conditions. Similarly, attention manipulation during learning did not differentially affect ERPs elicited by young versus old faces. Experiment 2 examined repetition effects from task-irrelevant old and young faces presented under varying attentional load on the N250r ERP component as an index of face recognition. Independent of load, N250r effects were comparable for both age categories. Finally, in Experiment 3 we measured N2pc as an index of attentional selection of old versus young target faces in a visual search task. N2pc was not significantly different for young versus old target search conditions, suggesting equivalent orientation of attention to either face age group. Overall, we propose that the OAB in memory is largely unrelated to early attentional processes. Our findings therefore contrast predictions from socio-cognitive accounts on own-group biases in recognition memory, and are more easily reconciled with expertise-based models.

The relationship between visual search and categorization of own‐ and other‐age faces

“…Although the own‐age detection advantage and the other‐age categorization advantage are consistent with some previous studies, they are inconsistent with studies that have found an attentional bias for other‐age faces, like the attentional bias towards infant faces (Brosch et al ., ; Thompson‐Booth et al ., ) or the accuracy advantage for detecting older adult faces observed by Neumann et al . (). At this point, it is unclear why some studies produce evidence for an attentional bias towards own‐age faces and others an attentional bias towards other‐age faces.…”

“…This would explain why young adult participants were faster to respond to probes that were preceded by an infant face than a young adult face in the dot probe paradigm (Brosch et al ., ; Hodsoll et al ., ); however, this explanation cannot account for the absence of a detection advantage for infant faces in a visual search experiment using infant and young adult faces as targets and distractors (Macchi Cassia et al ., ). Also, it cannot explain the finding that young adult participants more accurately detected older adult than young adult targets (Neumann et al ., ).…”

“…(), and those used by Neumann et al . () differed in a number of ways. In particular, in the current study and in the study by Macchi Cassia et al ., search arrays were presented until a response was made, whereas they were presented for a limited duration of 200 ms by Neumann and colleagues.…”

“…A recent study also provided evidence to suggest that older adult faces may receive preferential attention in a task where multiple faces competed for attention (Neumann, End, Luttmann, Schweinberger, & Wiese, ). Young adult participants searched for young adult targets amongst older adult backgrounds or vice versa in search arrays presented for 200 ms.…”

“…Considered together, the results of past studies lead to inconsistent conclusions about the influence of facial age cues on the allocation of attention to faces varying in age. Even considering the visual search results alone, one study suggested no detection advantage in response times, but more accurate detection of other‐age faces (Neumann et al ., ), and another suggested preferential allocation of attention to own‐age faces (Macchi Cassia et al ., ). These results may be due to the different methods adopted between the two studies.…”