{
  "abstract": "The other-race effect, better recognition of same-race than other-race faces, is established for individual faces. Whether this benefit is reflected in neural representations of face ensembles, as when viewing a crowd, remains unclear. We recorded electroencephalography responses from 22 East Asian adults viewing synthetic East Asian (same-race) and White (other-race) faces in two formats: individually and in six-face ensembles. Multivariate decoding and generative image reconstruction assessed neural discriminability, representational geometry and recoverable visual content. Behavioral testing confirmed a same-race recognition advantage. The corresponding neural decoding advantage depended on viewing format and was not preserved for race-homogeneous ensembles, although their constituents retained it when viewed individually. Early ensemble decoding instead favored other-race faces. Race organized ensemble representations and reconstructed latent vectors matched ensemble summary targets above chance. Independent judgments revealed format-dependent race differences in reconstructed age and arousal relative to model-derived references. These findings constrain accounts of same-race expertise: its benefit for neural discriminability depends on whether faces are represented individually or collectively. Recoverable ensemble-summary information can also coexist with systematic appearance shifts, linking the organization of neural representations to their visual content.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "University of Toronto Scarborough"
  ],
  "article_type": "New results",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 7,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "M. Shoura"
    },
    {
      "name": "H. N. Jiang"
    },
    {
      "name": "Z. Azeem"
    },
    {
      "name": "O. Iancu"
    },
    {
      "name": "M. A. Sama"
    },
    {
      "name": "J. S. Cant"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "A. Nestor"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/e1wn3qkrxt8p0.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.64898/2026.09.17.752481",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.17.752481v1.full",
  "id": "e1wn3qkrxt8p0",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.17.752481v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "biorxiv",
      "neuroscience"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2805|Face Recognition and Perception"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7203729001",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.17.752481v1.full.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-17",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/e1wn3qkrxt8p0.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:23:37Z",
      "native_id": "10.64898/2026.09.17.752481",
      "source": "biorxiv",
      "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.17.752481v2"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "biorxiv:neuroscience",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Face ensembles reshape the neural other-race effect",
  "title_text": "Face ensembles reshape the neural other-race effect",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-01T00:21:47Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/e1wn3qkrxt8p0",
  "venue": "bioRxiv",
  "versions": []
}