Response to Stereotypes and Race

[Camille Barnes]

The Golby, et al article aims to investigate further the
phenomena that individuals are better at recognizing same race faces
than other race faces. One theory that might help to explain this
phenomena is the contact hypothesis which proposes that the same-race
advantage results from greater experience with faces from one’s own
race. Another possible theory is that superior memory for same-race
faces emerges because of differential saliency of same-race and other-
race faces. This study looked at brain activation in the FFA, which
is useful in face and category of expertise identification. Based on
same-race memory superiority, the authors predicted that encoding
other-race faces would not activate these brain regions to the same
degree as same-race faces. They also looked at whether there is a
correlation between superior memory for same-race versus other-race
faces and activation in response to viewing the faces. This study
consisted of 20 participants (half African American and half European
American). There brains were scanned by fMRI while participating in
an encoding session, in which they viewed a series of same race faces,
other race faces, antique clocks, and fixation crosses. Then, memory
was tested in a testing phase, in which pictures of faces were
presented and participants had to indicate if they had seen the face
in the previous stage or not.
Results indicated that participants had no differences in
memory of antique radios. In both groups, participants were better at
recognizing same-race faces in comparison to other-race faces. The
same race advantage was significant for the EA (European Americans)
group but not the AA (African American) group. AA and EA participants
did not differ in their memory for EA faces but did differ
significantly in their memory for AA faces, such that AA participants
had enhanced memory for AA faces relative to EA faces, whereas EA
participants had decreased memory for AA faces relative to EA faces.
Superior memory for same-race versus other-race faces was
significantly correlated with greater signal in the left fusiform
gyrus for same race versus other-race faces. Other areas
demonstrating a significant correlation with superior memory for same-
race faces were the right hippocampal and parahippocampal gyri.
I have several comments on this article. This study used
only males, but did not offer any explanation of why. They also did
not use the results of one participant in the analysis and did not say
why. I was confused when they were describing how the FFA was located
in different areas for different participants, and then later I read
that this is because they identified the FFA as the area activated
when people looked at faces. I found this location technique to be
circular, and I am not sure they were looking at the FFA (and not some
area activated for identification of animate versus inanimate
processing, or something like that) in all participants. I thought it
would have been interesting to see the bran scans while the memory
testing phase was occurring too, and since the participants were
already hooked up to the machine in part one, this wouldn’t be a
difficult task. I wonder if they did scan them, but just didn’t like
the results? In the statistical analysis, the authors used all t-
tests, which I thought was unusual; if they are going to do this, they
should use corrections. One result that I found interesting was that
EA and AA had equal activation of EA faces, but AA had higher
activation of AA faces. So, it seems that African Americans overall
had more activation to faces; I wish the article had discussed this
potentially interesting finding. Maybe, it is more advantageous for
minorities to pay attention to the faces of others, since they are
more likely to be the outgroup, or possibly some other reason is at
the heart of this finding?




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