记忆面孔, 男女有别: 关于面孔再认性别差异的行为与ERP研究

采用行为实验及事件相关电位技术, 通过学习-测验范式考察面孔再认中的性别差异,结果发现: (ⅰ) 女性面孔更容易被记住, 且女性很可能比男性更擅长记忆面孔. (ⅱ) 旧面孔诱发的N170 波幅更大, 表明该脑电成分可受到面孔熟悉度的调制. (ⅲ) 女性面孔诱发的N170 波幅更大, 而男性面孔引发的P2 波幅更大; 前者可能与女性面孔可变化的特征较多、需要更大的心理负载有关; 后者可能与男性面孔可变化的特征较少、再认难度较大, 从而需要更深的加工有关. (ⅳ) 新旧面孔诱发女性被试的P1 波幅存在差异, 但男性被试身上不存在此现象, 提示女性的脑活动可能比男性更早地受面孔的熟悉度所调制. 此外, 女性被试对于新旧面孔还表现出P2, N250 波幅的差异, 且女性被试新旧效应涉及的头皮范围比男性更广, 这些都为女性较好的面孔再认能力提供了电生理证据.

Gender differences in face recognition:A behavioral and ERP study

The present study examined gender differences in face recognition using the “learning-recognition” paradigm in conjunction with behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) analysis. The results revealed four major findings: (1) Female faces were easier to remember than male faces, and females remembered more faces than males. (2) We observed a familiarity effect at 170 ms after stimulus onset (NI70), with larger amplitudes in response to familiar faces, indicating that the N170 can be modulated by familiarity. (3) Enhanced N170 amplitude was observed for female faces, possibly because the female faces involved more changeable features, meaning that recognition entailed a greater cognitive load. Enhanced P2 amplitude was observed in response to male faces, possibly because the male faces involved less changeable features, meaning that they were more difficult to recognize and required deeper processing. (4) Increased P1 amplitude was exhibited in response to familiar compared to unfamiliar faces by females, but not by males. This result suggests that females processed the familiarity of faces earlier than males. In addition, differences in P2 and N250 amplitude were observed between familiar and unfamiliar faces in females. The familiar/unfamiliar effect in females was associated with a broader area of scalp activation, compared to males. Taken together, our electrophysiological findings suggested that females possess superior face recognition ability.