The self and a close-other: differences between processing of faces and newly acquired information

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Social Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Self-related information often shows preferential processing, potentially due to familiarity or arbitrary association.
• Previous behavioral studies indicate a self-preference even for unfamiliar, self-associated stimuli.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of familiar self-related stimuli (self-face) versus arbitrarily associated stimuli (self-assigned shapes).
• To compare brain responses to self-faces, close-other faces, and unknown faces, as well as self-assigned shapes, close-other-assigned shapes, and unknown shapes.

Main Methods:

• Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants viewed self-faces, close-other faces, unknown faces, self-assigned shapes, close-other-assigned shapes, and unknown shapes.
• Reaction times (RTs) and P3 amplitudes were analyzed.
• Nonparametric cluster-based permutation tests were used to identify significant differences in neural activity.

Main Results:

• Shorter reaction times and larger P3 amplitudes were observed for the self-face compared to close-other and unknown faces.
• P3 amplitudes for self-assigned shapes and close-other-assigned shapes were similar and larger than for unknown shapes.
• No significant difference in P3 amplitude was found between self-assigned and close-other-assigned shapes.

Conclusions:

• The self-face elicits preferential attentional processing, likely driven by its inherent familiarity.
• Arbitrarily assigned shapes, whether linked to the self or a close-other, receive similar attentional resource allocation.
• These findings differentiate the processing of familiar self-identity cues from newly formed self-associations.