Abstract

The other race effect is when an individual remembers people of their same race better than other race individuals. Same race faces were shown to be processed more holistically and remembered better, compared to other race faces which use a more feature-based processing. Emotions play a part in how memories are formed and influence what is remembered in more detail or not, depending on if this situation is positive or negative. Emotions also induce different processing styles; more positive emotions elicit holistic processing and negative emotions elicit more feature based processing. Within the current study, 19 Caucasian College of Wooster students were used in an EEG study that considered how positive and negative context images influence the other race effect. African American and Caucasian neutral faces were used between four study blocks and four test blocks. The behavioral data showed a trend for false alarms for other race faces, within the N170 African American faces showed a more negative amplitude, in the parietal old/ new effect African American faces elicited a more positive amplitude, and there were no significant findings within the FN400. This supported the other race effect but neither hypothesis was confirmed, positive and negative context images did not have an influence on the other race effect. With the current study and suggestions for future studies, this research could be a neurological foundation to stopping discrimination and racial prejudices from a neurological level.

Advisor

Herzmann, Grit

Department

Neuroscience

Disciplines

Cognitive Psychology

Keywords

The Other Race Effect, Positive, Negative

Publication Date

2018

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis

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© Copyright 2018 Samantha M. Davis