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Doctoral thesis

Neither black nor white : novel insights into the neural underpinnings of face race processing

PSPE

  • Fribourg (Switzerland), [2025]

1 ressource en ligne (xx, 297pages) ; 1 fichier pdf

PhD: Université de Fribourg (Suisse), 10.10.2025

Perception des visages
Blancs
Noirs
Relations interethniques
Neuropsychologie
English Fast and accurate face processing is essential for social interaction. Interestingly, race influences this process: individuals recognize faces from their own racial group more accurately (Same-Race Recognition Advantage, SRRA), while faces from other racial groups are categorized more quickly (Other-Race Categorization Advantage, ORCA). Despite extensive research, the neural mechanisms underlying these effects remain unclear and inconsistent.This thesis contributes to the existing literature through three studies. Study 1 examined patient PS, who has acquired prosopagnosia following lesions to the left FFA and right OFA. Despite severe impairments in face identity processing, PS showed both SRRA and ORCA of similar magnitude compared to controls, suggesting that these regions are not necessary for eliciting race-related effects. Study 2 further investigated PS’s ability to process fine-grained race information using face morphs. Results showed reduced fine-grained race sensitivity compared to controls, indicating that the lFFA and rOFA contribute to the extraction of subtle race cues. Finally, Study 3 validated the use of fast periodic visual stimulation with EEG to study face race processing and highlighted the strength of race cues. When faces were embedded among objects and presented rapidly, stronger occipitotemporal responses were observed for other- as compared to same-race faces, in both upright and inverted orientations.Altogether, this thesis clarifies the role of face-sensitive regions and shows that race is a strong visual signal.
Faculty
Faculté des lettres et des sciences humaines
Department
Département de Psychologie
Language
  • English
Classification
Psychology
Notes
  • Bibliographie
License
CC BY
Open access status
diamond
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/335275
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