An event-related potential investigation of age and sex in face categorization: Participant sex matters

ABSTRACT

Whether a face is categorized as male or female is influenced by the age of the face. In the present study, Event-Related Potential (ERP) measures were employed to offer insight into the neural correlates indexing the interaction between the age and sex of a face during sex categorization. Thirty-eight young adults (18 male) categorized the sex of young (18–29 years) and older (70–94 years) adult faces as ERP activity was recorded. Amplitude modulation for the P3b was observed in parietal regions. Younger female faces elicited more positive P3b amplitudes than older female faces, a difference that did not occur for male faces. Behavioral performance and P3b modulation also indicated these effects varied between male and female participants. Women responded more slowly and with less accuracy to older female faces compared to male and young female faces, a pattern of results mirrored by P3b latency. These findings indicate that later-occurring ERP components, such as the P3b, signal the intersection of multiple social categories during face processing suggesting that the evaluation of ingroup/outgroup membership related to age is enhanced for young women, but not for young men.

KEYWORDS:

• Face processing
• age
• sex categorization
• ERPs
• P3b

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental Material

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Notes

¹ For simplicity the term “gender” will be used throughout this paper to refer to the attributes that differentiate men from women related to socialization, and vice versa. The term “sex” will denote the physical and biological characteristics associated with being a male or female individual.

² Stimuli were originally sourced from the CAL/PAL Face database. The stimuli can be accessed via the Park Aging Mind Laboratory at http://agingmind.utdallas.edu/download-stimuli/face-database/.