RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Human face-selective cortex does not distinguish between members of a racial outgroup
JF eneuro
JO eNeuro
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP ENEURO.0431-19.2020
DO 10.1523/ENEURO.0431-19.2020
A1 Niv Reggev
A1 Kirstan Brodie
A1 Mina Cikara
A1 Jason P. Mitchell
YR 2020
UL http://www.eneuro.org/content/early/2020/05/18/ENEURO.0431-19.2020.abstract
AB People often fail to individuate members of social outgroups, a phenomenon known as the outgroup homogeneity effect. Here, we used fMRI repetition suppression to investigate the neural representation underlying this effect. In a pre-registered study, White human perceivers (N = 29) responded to pairs of faces depicting White or Black targets. In each pair, the second face depicted either the same target as the first face, a different target from the same race, or a scrambled face outline. We localized face-selective neural regions via an independent task, and demonstrated that neural activity in the fusiform face area distinguished different faces only when targets belonged to the perceivers’ racial ingroup (White). By contrast, face-selective cortex did not discriminate between other-race individuals. Moreover, across two studies (total N = 67) perceivers were slower to discriminate between different outgroup members and remembered them to a lesser extent. Together, these results suggest that the outgroup homogeneity effect arises when early-to-mid-level visual processing results in an erroneous overlap of representations of outgroup members.Significance statement Researchers have repeatedly demonstrated that perceivers struggle to distinguish between different members of a racial outgroup. Here, we show in a pre-registered study that this failure arises when areas of the human brain that specifically process facial identity—most notably, the so-called “fusiform face area”—fail to detect differences between identities of members of a racial outgroup. When White perceivers viewed photos of two different Black men, the face area of their brains responded as if the two photos portrayed the same person. This effect was constrained to outgroup faces; the face area successfully distinguished faces of two different White individuals. Our results highlight the failure of basic representational mechanisms in processing individuals from other social groups.