Face ensembles reshape the neural other-race effect
- 1University of Toronto Scarborough
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.
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BibTeX
@misc{shoura2026face,
title = {{Face ensembles reshape the neural other-race effect}},
author = {M. Shoura and H. N. Jiang and Z. Azeem and O. Iancu and M. A. Sama and J. S. Cant and A. Nestor},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.17.752481},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.17.752481v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Face ensembles reshape the neural other-race effect
AU - M. Shoura
AU - H. N. Jiang
AU - Z. Azeem
AU - O. Iancu
AU - M. A. Sama
AU - J. S. Cant
AU - A. Nestor
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/17
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.17.752481
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.17.752481v1
AB - 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.
ER -