Skip to main content
PMC home page
NIHPA Author Manuscripts logoLink to NIHPA Author Manuscripts
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Mar 15.
Published in final edited form as: Soc Cogn. 2011 Jan 27;29(1):97–109. doi: 10.1521/soco.2011.29.1.97

WHAT PREDICTS THE OWN-AGE BIAS IN FACE RECOGNITION MEMORY?

Yi He 1, Natalie C Ebner 1, Marcia K Johnson 1
PMCID: PMC3057073  NIHMSID: NIHMS271050  PMID: 21415928

Abstract

Younger and older adults’ visual scan patterns were examined as they passively viewed younger and older neutral faces. Both participant age groups tended to look longer at their own-age as compared to other-age faces. In addition, both age groups reported more exposure to own-age than other-age individuals. Importantly, the own-age bias in visual inspection of faces and the own-age bias in self-reported amount of exposure to young and older individuals in everyday life, but not explicit age stereotypes and implicit age associations, significantly and independently predicted the own-age bias in later old/new face recognition. We suggest these findings reflect increased personal and social relevance of, and more accessible and elaborated schemas for, own-age than other-age faces.

Human faces provide information critical for social interactions. Some of the information extracted from faces (e.g., expression, race, or age) affects how faces are encoded and remembered (Bäckman, 1991; Ebner & Johnson, 2009; Meissner & Brigham, 2001). For instance, people of different ages are more likely to attend to, and are faster and more accurate in recognizing, faces of their own than another age group (Anastasi & Rhodes, 2005; Ebner & Johnson, 2010; Lamont, Stewart-Williams, & Podd, 2005; see Harrison & Hole, 2009, for an overview). There are several factors that may predict the own-age bias in face recognition as discussed below.

VISUAL INSPECTION OF OWN-AGE AND OTHER-AGE FACES

Differential attention can be reflected in patterns of looking at faces (Buswell, 1935; Isaacowitz, Wadlinger, Goren, & Wilson, 2006; Knight, Seymour, Gaunt, Baker, Nesmith et al., 2007), and visual scan pattern can affect encoding and recognition of faces (Henderson, Williams, & Falk, 2005). For example, face recognition is impaired when eye movements during face encoding are restricted to the center of a face instead of allowing for free sampling of facial features and their interrelations (Henderson et al., 2005).

Younger and older adults differ in how they visually scan faces: Whereas younger adults look more at eyes than mouths, older adults show the reverse pattern on an emotional expression identification task (Murphy & Isaacowitz, 2010; Sullivan, Ruffman, & Hutton, 2007; Wong, Cronin-Golomb, & Neargarder, 2005, but see Ebner, He, & Johnson, in press). But do younger and older adults differently scan faces of their own age group as opposed to faces of the other age group, and if so, do differences in scan pattern predict the own-age bias in later face recognition? To our knowledge, the only study that addressed these questions asked younger and older adults to rate the quality of pictures of younger and older faces and to evaluate the age of the faces (Firestone, Turk-Browne, & Ryan, 2007). Under these conditions, there was no indication of an own-age bias in visual inspection of faces. Rather, overall looking time, number of fixations, and number of transitions between facial features were greater for younger than older faces in both age groups and visual scan pattern did not correlate with old/new face recognition. However, the particular rating tasks used may have increased similarity among participants in how they scanned faces. It may be that under more natural, passive free viewing conditions, scan patterns would show an own-age bias in attention which would be related to memory.

AMOUNT OF EXPOSURE TO OWN-AGE AND OTHER-AGE PERSONS

Both younger and older adults report a greater amount of exposure to individuals of their own as compared to another age group in their daily lives. In addition, the more contact younger adults report to have with older adults the better they are able to later correctly recognize older faces, but no such effect is observed for older adults (Ebner & Johnson, 2009). It seems reasonable to suppose that, as a consequence of more frequent encounters with persons of their own age, individuals develop and/or maintain better schemas supporting own age face recognition. However, older adults may engage a less than optimal scan pattern when inspecting faces, offsetting a potential benefit from available schemas. Further examination of age differences in both scan patterns and amount of exposure to individuals of different ages, and the independent contributions of these factors to predicting own-age bias in face recognition should be informative.

EXPLICIT AGE STEREOTYPES AND IMPLICIT AGE ASSOCIATIONS ABOUT OWN-AGE AND OTHER-AGE PERSONS

In the context of artificially assigned minimal group membership, individuals evaluate in-group members more positively than out-group members (Brewer, 1979), and recognize in-group faces more accurately than out-group faces (Bernstein, Young, & Hugenberg, 2007). If age operates like an in-group, then younger and older adults should show age-related stereotypes that favor their own age group. These stereotypes may guide attention to, and potentially enhance memory for, individuals of different ages (as shown in the context of the own-race bias, see Meissner & Brigham, 2001). However, studies of age-related stereotyping indicate that younger and older individuals view older persons more negatively than younger persons (Ebner, 2008; Gluth, Ebner, & Schmiedek, 2010; Kite, Stockdale, Whitley, & Johnson, 2005) and both age groups have more negative implicit associations toward older targets (Hummert, Garstka, O’Brien, Greenwald, & Mellott, 2002). These findings suggest that both younger and older adults should be influenced in the same direction by explicit and implicit age associations and should show more attention to, and better memory for, the more positively viewed (i.e., the younger, not older) individuals.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The aim of this study was to examine whether visual inspection, amount of exposure, explicit age stereotypes, and/or implicit age associations independently predicted the own-age bias in face recognition memory in younger and older adults. We recorded eye movements of younger and older adults during passive free viewing of younger and older neutral faces. This was followed by a surprise old/new face recognition memory task, a questionnaire assessing exposure to younger and older persons in daily life, and assessment of explicit age stereotypes and implicit age associations. We hypothesized that younger and older participants would (1) look longer at own-age than other-age faces, and (2) report more exposure to individuals of their own than the other age group. Furthermore, we expected that (3) differences in looking time at younger and older faces and differences in the amount of exposure to younger and older individuals would independently contribute to the own-age bias in old/new face recognition memory. Given the two, somewhat contradictory, lines of evidence in the literature, we did not have predictions regarding own-age bias in explicit age stereotypes and implicit age associations and their relations to face recognition memory.

METHODS

PARTICIPANTS

Forty-seven younger adults (age range 18–30 years, M = 22.2, SD = 2.9, 57% women) were recruited through flyers on campus, and 33 older adults (age range 63–92 years, M = 74.9, SD = 7.8, 70% women) from the community through flyers posted in, or mailing to, community or senior citizen centers. Only participants who had more than 67% trials with valid gazing information (defined as gazes focused within 1º of visual angle for at least 0.1 seconds) were included in the analyses, resulting in a final sample of 25 younger participants (age range 19–29 years, M = 22.2, SD = 2.9, 60% women) and 24 older participants (age range 63–92 years, M = 73.9, SD = 7.8, 71% women). All participants were compensated for participation. The majority of the younger participants were Yale University undergraduates (varying majors). Older participants reported a mean of 16.7 years of education (SD = 1.6). Younger and older participants did not differ in self-reported health, but they differed in near vision, contrast sensitivity, and visual-motor processing speed (Table 1).1

TABLE 1.

Means/Percentages (Standard Deviations) and Significance Tests for Health, Cognition, and Vision Measures for Younger and Older Participants

Measures Younger Participants
M/% (SD)		 Older Participants
M/% (SD)		 Age Group Differences
Self-Reported Health 4.36 (0.70) 4.21 (0.72) F(1, 48) = 0.56, p = .46, ηp2 = .01
Hearing Difficulties 0.0% 58.3% χ2(1, N = 49) = 20.42, p < .001
Near Vision (binocular) 22.40 (5.02) 52.08 (50.43) F(1, 48) = 8.58, p < .001, ηp2 = .15
Contrast Sensitivity (binocular) 1.72 (0.09) 1.54 (0.19) F(1, 48) = 18.82, p < .001, ηp2 = .29
Visual-Motor Processing Speed 67.48 (11.96) 45.46 (7.86) F(1, 48) = 57.50, p < .001, ηp2 = .55
Open in a new tab

Note. Self-reported health: “In general (i.e., over the past year), how would you rate your health and physical well-being?” (1 = poor, 5 = excellent); hearing difficulties: “Do you have any hearing difficulties?” (yes, no); near vision: Rosenbaum Pocket Vision Screener (Rosenbaum, Granham-Field Surgical Co Inc, New York, NY; lower scores indicate better vision); contrast sensitivity: MARS Letter Contrast Sensitivity Test (Arditi, 2005; higher scores indicate better sensitivity); Visual-motor processing speed: Digit-Symbol-Substitution Test (Wechsler, 1981; higher scores indicate higher speed in performance).

STIMULI AND EQUIPMENT

Stimuli were taken from the FACES database, a standardized set of color photographs of naturalistic Caucasian (frontal view) faces of different ages (Ebner, Riediger, & Lindenberger, 2010). Equal numbers of faces from younger (18–31 years) and older individuals (69–80 years), half male and half female, were presented on a 17-inch display (1024 × 768 pixels) at a distance of 24 inches (face stimuli: 623 × 768 pixels). Stimulus presentation was controlled using Gaze Tracker (Eye Response Technologies, Inc., Charlottesville, VA) for the eye tracking task and EPrime (Schneider, Eschman, & Zuccolotto, 2002) for the other computer tasks. An Applied Science Laboratories (Bedford, MA) Model 504 Eye Tracker recorded eye movements at a rate of 60 Hz.

PROCEDURE

After giving consent, participants rested their head on a chinrest to minimize head movement. The eye tracking camera was adjusted to locate the corneal reflection and pupil of participants’ left eye, followed by an individual 9-point calibration covering the area of stimulus presentation. Participants first worked on the Passive Face Viewing Task (described below) for about 10 minutes. They then filled in a short demographic and physical health questionnaire on paper and worked on the Digit-Symbol-Substitution Test as a measure of processing speed (Table 1). After 10 minutes, participants performed the (surprise) Old/New Face Recognition Task (described below), followed by the Rosenbaum Pocket Vision Screener and the MARS Letter Contrast Sensitivity Test (Table 1).

Participants then took the Older-Younger Implicit Association Task (Age IAT; Hummert et al., 2002), as a measure of implicit age associations. In this task participants responded to either younger or older faces using the same key as responding to positive or negative words and response times were measured. Higher positive IAT scores indicate more positive associations for younger than older targets (for calculation of this difference score, see Greenwald, Nosek, & Banaji, 2003).

Participants indicated the amount of social exposure to persons of their own and the other age group using the same 8-point scale for each question where 1 = less than once per year, and 8 = daily (Media exposure: “How often are you exposed to younger [approx. between 18–30 years of age]/older [approx. 65 years of age and older] adults on television or in other media ?”; Personal exposure: “How often do you have personal contact with younger/older adults?”; Other types of exposure: “How often do you have other types of contact with younger/older adults?”).

Finally, they responded to the AGED Inventory (Knox, Gekoski, & Kelly, 1995), as a measure of explicit age stereotypes, comprising 28 adjective pairs, with respect to younger (approx. between 18–30 years of age) and older (approx. 65 years of age and older) adults. Only the subscale of “positiveness” (including seven adjective pairs, e.g., 1 = pessimistic, 7 = optimistic; 1 = unproductive, 7 = productive) was used in the final analysis.

EXPERIMENTAL TASKS: PASSIVE FACE VIEWING AND OLD/NEW FACE RECOGNITION

As show in Figure 1, the experiment consisted of two tasks: (A) a Passive Face Viewing Task during which eye movements were recorded; and (B) an Old/New Face Recognition Task during which key press responses and response times, but no eye tracking, were recorded. For both tasks, the experimenter gave verbal instructions and a computer program provided additional written instructions and practice runs.

FIGURE 1.

FIGURE 1

Open in a new tab

Experimental Tasks: (A) Passive Face Viewing During Which Eye Movements Were Recorded; (B) Old/New Face Recognition Task During Which No Eye Movements Were Recorded.

During the Passive Face Viewing Task, participants saw 24 younger and 24 older faces, one face at a time, for a fixed presentation time of 4 seconds. Participants were instructed to “Look naturally at whatever is interesting to you in the images as if you were at home watching TV,” while blinking naturally. A black cross on a grey background appeared for 2 seconds between trials. No more than two faces of the same age or gender repeated in a row. Overall gaze time and number of gazes (defined as amount of time, and number of times, participants’ pupil and corneal reflection were recorded during face presentation) were extracted. In addition, each face was divided into an upper (covering the area around the eyes) and a lower (covering the area around the mouth) half, without overlap or gap, and gaze time of these two areas of interest was extracted.

During the Old/New Face Recognition Task participants were shown 48 (24 younger and 24 older) target faces from the passive viewing phase and 48 (24 younger and 24 older) new, distracter faces, again one face at a time, for a fixed interval of 3 seconds. After the face disappeared, the computer prompted participants to make an old/new judgment for the face, before the next face presentation. Again a black cross on a grey background appeared for 2 seconds between trials. No more than two faces of the same age or gender and no more than three target or distracter faces repeated in a row. Target and distracter faces were counterbalanced across participants.

RESULTS

OWN-AGE BIAS IN OLD/NEW FACE RECOGNITION MEMORY

We conducted a mixed-model analysis of variance (ANOVA) on old/new face recognition memory (indexed by d’; Green & Swets, 1966) with Age of Participants (younger, older) as a between-subjects factor and Age of Faces (younger, older) as a within-subject factor. The main effects of Age of Participants, F(1, 47) = 10.60, p < .01, ηp 2 = .18, Age of Faces, F(1, 47) = 4.32, p < .05, ηp 2 = .08) and the Age of Participants × Age of Faces interaction, F(1, 47) = 14.79, p < .001, ηp 2 = .24) were significant (Figure 2A): Both younger and, marginally significant, older participants recognized own-age faces better than other-age faces2 (Younger participants: M(d’)Younger faces = 1.99, SD = 0.84, M(d’)Older faces = 1.42, SD = 0.67; t(24) = 3.53, p < .01; M(hits)Younger faces = 17.2, SD = 3.30, M(hits)Older faces = 16.32, SD = 3.00; M(FA)Younger faces = 6.75, SD = 4.92, M(FA)Older faces = 8.25, SD = 4.05; Older participants: M(d’)Younger faces = 1.07, SD = 0.63, M(d’)Older faces = 1.24, SD = 0.54; t(23) = 1.67, p = .11; M(hits)Younger faces = 15.42, SD = 4.2, M(hits)Older faces = 19.08, SD = 3.84; M(FA)Younger faces = 8.05, SD = 5.93, M(FA)Older faces = 10.48, SD = 4.80).

FIGURE 2.

FIGURE 2

Open in a new tab

A. Significant interaction between Age of Participants and Age of Faces Observed in Old/New Face Recognition Memory (d’).

B. Significant interaction between Age of Participants and Age of Faces Observed in Overall Gaze Time (in Seconds).

C. Significant interaction between Age of Participants and Age of Targets Observed in Self-Reported Amount of Exposure to Younger and Older Persons.

Note. Error bars represent standard errors of condition mean differences.

PREDICTORS OF OWN-AGE BIAS IN OLD/NEW FACE RECOGNITION MEMORY

Next, we addressed the questions of whether either overall gaze time at younger and older faces, self-reported amount of exposure to younger and older persons, explicit age stereotypes, and/or implicit age associations predicted the observed own-age bias in old/new face recognition memory. We first tested for an own-age bias in each of these variables.

Overall Gaze Time

We conducted a mixed-model ANOVA on overall gaze time (in seconds) with Age of Participants (younger, older) as a between-subjects factor and Age of Faces (younger, older) and Target Face Recognition (correct recognition, missed recognition) as within-subject factors. None of the main effects were significant but the Age of Participants by Age of Faces interaction was significant, F(1, 43) = 4.66, p < .05, ηp 2 = .10; Figure 2B). The interaction resulted because both age groups tended to look longer at own-age than other-age faces, although neither comparison was independently significant (Younger participants: MYounger faces = 3.74, SD = 0.29, MOlder faces = 3.71, SD = 0.28; t(23) = 1.40, p = .17; Older participants: MYounger faces = 3.65, SD = 0.29, MOlder faces = 3.68, SD = 0.29; t(20) = −1.73, p = .10). This pattern of results was similar in the number of gazes on younger and older faces.

Gaze Time at Upper and Lower Half of Faces

To explore gaze time differences in upper versus lower half of faces, respectively, we conducted separate mixed-model ANOVAs with Age of Participants as a between-subjects factor and Age of Faces and Target Face Recognition as within-subject factors. For looking time at lower half of faces there was a significant main effect for Old Face Recognition F(1,43) = 5.22, p < .05, ηp 2 = .11, with longer gaze time at correctly remembered (M = 1.00, SD = 0.60) than missed (M = 0.93, SD = 0.65) faces. No other effect was significant. In addition, for older, but not younger, participants longer gaze time at the upper half of older faces predicted more accurate recognition of older faces (r = .42, p < .05), while longer gaze time at the lower half of older faces predicted worse recognition of older faces (r = −.45, p < .05).

Self-Reported Amount of Exposure

We then conducted a mixed-model ANOVA on amount of exposure to younger and older persons (composite score [max: 8, indicating daily contact] of media, personal, and other types of exposure) with Age of Participants (younger, older) as a between-subjects factor and Age of Targets (younger, older) as a within-subject factor. There were no significant main effects, but the interaction between Age of Participants and Age of Targets was significant, F(1, 46) = 55.98, p < .001, ηp 2 = .55). As shown in Figure 2C, both participant groups had more contact with persons of their own than the other age group (Younger participants: MYounger targets = 7.72, SD = 0.69, MOlder targets = 5.80, SD = 1.62, t(24) = 6.11, p < .001; Older participants: MYounger targets = 6.06, SD = 1.39, MOlder targets = 7.20, SD = 0.76; t(22) = 4.46, p < .001).

Explicit Age Stereotype

A mixed-model ANOVA of explicit age stereotype scores (composite score [max = 7] of items from the positiveness subscale) with Age of Participants (younger, older) as a between-subjects factor and Age of Targets (younger, older) as a within-subject factor showed a main effect for Age of Targets, F(1,46) = 34.05, p < .001, ηp 2 = .43): Participants rated younger targets as more positive (M = 4.98, SD = 0.74) than older targets (M = 4.17, SD = 0.86). No other effect was significant.

Implicit Age Associations

Conducted separately within younger and older participants, one-sample t-tests (test against 0, which indicates no difference in response time between associating younger faces with positive words as compared to older faces) showed that both age groups had more positive implicit associations for younger than older faces (Younger participants: M = 0.41, SD = 0.30, t(24) = 6.99, p < .001; Older participants: M = 0.55, SD = 0.27, t(23) = 10.01, p < .001). The difference between younger and older participants was not significant.

Testing Independent Predictors of Own-Age Bias in Old/New Face Recognition Memory

We then conducted a multiple linear regression analysis to examine whether overall gaze time, self-reported amount of exposure, explicit age stereotypes, and implicit age associations (independently) predicted old/new face recognition memory for younger and older faces in younger and older participants. As presented in Table 2, in a first step we entered the difference between overall gaze time at younger as compared to older faces as predictor of the difference between remembering younger as compared to older faces. Overall gaze time significantly predicted old/new face recognition memory. In a second step, we introduced the difference between self-reported amount of exposure to younger as compared to older persons as additional predictor into the model. This variable significantly predicted old/new face recognition memory, over and above overall gaze time. In a third step, we entered the difference between ratings for younger and older persons in terms of positiveness (explicit age stereotypes) and implicit age associations toward younger over older persons as additional predictors. In this model, overall gaze time remained a significant predictor, self-reported amount of exposure became marginally significant, while neither explicit age stereotypes nor implicit age associations significantly predicted the own-age bias in face recognition memory (Table 2).

TABLE 2.

Results of Multiple Linear Regression Analysis: Predictors of Old/New Face Recognition Memory (Younger Faces/Targets Minus Older Faces/Targets)

Variables B SE B β
Step 1
    Overall Gaze Time (YF - OF) 3.67 1.26 .40*
Step 2
    Overall Gaze Time (YF - OF) 3.46 1.21 .38*
   Self-Reported Amount of Exposure (YT - OT) 0.11 0.05 .30*
Step 3
    Overall Gaze Time (YF - OF) 3.40 1.23 .37*
    Self-Reported Amount of Exposure (YT - OT) 0.09 0.05 .25+
    Explicit Age Stereotypes (YT - OT) 0.02 0.11 .02
    Implicit Age Associations −0.36 0.28 −.17
Open in a new tab

Note. R2 = .28, and ΔRStep12 = .16, ΔRStep22 = .09, ΔRStep32 = .03; YF = Younger faces, OF = Older faces; YT = Younger targets, OT = Older targets.

*

p < .05,

+

p < .10.

DISCUSSION

The present study is largely in line with previous findings of an own-age bias in old/new face recognition memory3 (see Harrison & Hole, 2009). Furthermore, it provides evidence of an own-age bias in visual inspection of younger and older faces (see also Ebner, He, & Johnson, in press), and in the self-reported amount of exposure to younger and older persons in everyday life in younger and older adults. Most importantly, it shows that own-age biases in visual inspection and in self-reported amount of exposure, but neither explicit age stereotypes nor implicit age associations, constitute independent predictors of the own-age bias in face recognition memory. In addition, looking at upper half of older faces was beneficial for old/new face recognition memory in older, but not younger, adults. Below we discuss possible interpretations of these findings.

GREATER PERSONAL AND SOCIAL RELEVANCE OF OWN-AGE THAN OTHER-AGE FACES

It seems likely that greater personal and social relevance for own-age than otherage faces plays an important role in generating the own-age bias in attention and memory observed in the present study (see also Harrison & Hole, 2009). The self-reference effect (Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977) suggests that information related to the self is encoded more elaborately and retrieved more accurately than non-self-referential information (Symons & Johnson, 1997). Participants in the present study may have used more self-referential encoding for own-age than other-age faces, as own-age persons are more likely to be similar to the self and to be personally relevant as potential social partners. This greater personal and social relevance may affect individuals’ interest in, and their motivation to, carefully scan own-age as compared to other-age faces as reflected in longer overall gaze time and consequently better recognition memory.

MORE ACCESSIBLE AND ELABORATED SCHEMAS FOR OWN-AGE THAN OTHER-AGE FACES

Both younger and older adults reported more everyday contact with own-age than other-age persons (see also Ebner & Johnson, 2009). This is likely to result in more accessible and elaborated schemas—general knowledge structures or set of beliefs that guide perception, organize information, and reconstruct memory (Bartlett, 1932; Bransford & Johnson, 1973)—for own-age than other-age faces. This interpretation is in line with Face Space Theory (Valentine, 1991) suggesting that representations of social in-group (e.g., own-age or own-race) faces are stored along dimensions optimized for individuation of those faces. In contrast, representations of social out-group (e.g., other-age) faces, according to this theory, are stored closer to each other and thus are more difficult to differentiate from one another.

EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT MEASURES OF POSITIVE/NEGATIVE AGE ASSOCIATIONS

In line with the literature on the negative aging stereotype (Gluth et al., 2010; Hummert et al., 2002; Kite et al., 2005), both younger and older participants showed more positive explicit stereotypes and implicit associations for younger than older persons. Furthermore, in line with indications of no direct influence of racial attitudes and preferences on the own-race bias in face recognition memory (Meissner & Brigham, 2001), neither explicit age stereotypes nor implicit age associations were related to overall looking time, or predicted the own-age bias in face recognition memory. This finding is particularly intriguing, in that it suggests that personal and social relevance and appropriate schemas based on experience, rather than age-related stereotypes, affect how younger and older adults visually inspect and later remember faces of their own as opposed to another age group. If so, there are important practical implications for face recognition contexts, such as eye-witness testimony, or screening for individuals at airports. Stereotypes may affect accuracy at face recognition less than perceived social relevance and available schemas for face processing.

IN-GROUP/OUT-GROUP DIFFERENTIATION

The present findings for age of face are similar to those obtained in studies on race of face. There is an “own-race bias” (Meissner & Brigham, 2001) reflected in more fixations on own-race than other-race faces with differences in visual scan patterns predicting better recognition of own-race than other-race faces (Goldinger, He, & Papesh, 2009). These similarities in the pattern of results pertaining to age and race of faces suggest general in-group/out-group processing differences at encoding and/or retrieval of faces (Ebner, He, Fichtenholtz, McCarthy, & Johnson, 2010; Symons & Johnson, 1997).

WHAT PREDICTS THE OWN-AGE BIAS IN FACE RECOGNITION MEMORY?

To conclude, during passive free viewing, younger and older adults tended to spend more time looking at own-age than other-age faces, which is possibly related to greater self-relevance of, and social motivation for, faces of their own age group. Furthermore, both age groups reported more frequent exposure to own-age than other-age persons in their daily routines, which likely leads to a more available repertoire of exemplars/associations (“that person looks like Joe”) or better schemas for configural encoding of features of own-age individuals. Importantly, both these effects (longer looking time and greater self-reported amount of exposure for own-age faces), but not age-related attitudes and associations, made unique contributions to explaining better recognition memory for own-age than other-age faces.

Acknowledgments

This research was conducted at Yale University and supported by the National Institute on Aging Grant RO1AG09253 awarded to MKJ and a German Research Foundation research grant (DFG EB 436/1-1) to NCE. The authors wish to thank John Bargh for providing the eye-tracking equipment, the Memory and Cognition Lab Project group and Derek Isaacowitz for discussions of the study reported in this article, and William Hwang and Sebastian Gluth for assistance in data collection.

Footnotes

1

Entering near vision, contrast sensitivity, and visual-motor processing into the model did not change the results.

2

In the total sample (N = 80; including participants without valid gazing information), the effect was significant in both participant age groups, F(1, 77) = 16.88, p < .001, ηp 2 = .18; Younger participants: M(d’)Younger faces = 1.95, SD = 0.80, M(d’)Older faces = 1.47, SD = 0.66; t(46) = 4.07, p < .001; Older participants: M(d’)Younger faces = 1.02, SD = 0.73, M(d’)Older faces = 1.22 , SD = 0.62; t(31) = 1.97, p = .05.

3

Whereas young adults were better at remembering own-age than other-age faces, this effect was only marginally significant in older adults. This is consistent with several studies suggesting a more reliable own-age bias in old/new face recognition in younger than older adults (Bartlett & Leslie, 1986; Fulton & Bartlett, 1991; but see Anastasi & Rhodes, 2006; Ebner, Riediger, & Lindenberger, 2009). It is possible that the slightly greater exposure of older adults to younger individuals as compared to younger adults to older individuals as self-reported by participants (see also Ebner & Johnson, 2009) makes the own-age bias less prominent in older adults. In addition, or alternatively, in the present study the age range of older participants (age range: 63–92 years) was much larger than that of younger participants (age range: 18–30 years). This greater age heterogeneity in older participants and the fact that some of the presented older (age range: 69–80 years) but not younger (age range: 18–31 years) faces were not overlapping with the age range of the older participants may have contributed to a less pronounced/homogenous own-age bias in this group.

REFERENCES

  1. Anastasi JS, Rhodes MG. An own-age bias in face recognition for children and older adults. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 2005;12(6):1043–1047. doi: 10.3758/bf03206441. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Anastasi JS, Rhodes MG. Evidence for an own-age bias in face recognition. North American Journal of Psychology. 2006;8:237–253. [Google Scholar]
  3. Arditi A. Improving the design of the letter contrast sensitivity test. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science. 2005;46:2225–2229. doi: 10.1167/iovs.04-1198. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Bäckman L. Recognition memory across the adult life span: The role of prior knowledge. Memory & Cognition. 1991;19:63–71. doi: 10.3758/bf03198496. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Bartlett FC. Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 1932. [Google Scholar]
  6. Bartlett JC, Leslie JE. Aging and memory for faces versus single views of faces. Memory & Cognition. 1986;14:371–381. doi: 10.3758/bf03197012. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Bernstein MJ, Young SG, Hugenberg K. The cross category effect: Mere social categorization is sufficient to elicit an own-group bias in face recognition. Psychological Science. 2007;18:706–712. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01964.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Bransford JD, Johnson MK. Consideration of some problems of comprehension. In: Chase WG, editor. Visual information processing. New York: Academic Press; 1973. [Google Scholar]
  9. Brewer MB. In-group bias in the minimal intergroup situation: A cognitive-motivational analysis. Psychological Bulletin. 1979;86:307–324. [Google Scholar]
  10. Buswell GT. How people look at pictures. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1935. [Google Scholar]
  11. Ebner NC. Age of face matters: Age-group differences in ratings of young and old faces. Behavior Research Methods. 2008;40:130–136. doi: 10.3758/brm.40.1.130. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Ebner NC, He Y, Fichtenholtz HM, Mc-Carthy G, Johnson MK. Electrophysiological correlates of processing faces of younger and older individuals. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsq074. (in press) [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Ebner NC, He Y, Johnson MK. Age and emotion affect how we look at a face: Visual scan patterns differ for own-age versus other-age emotional faces. Cognition and Emotion. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2010.540817. (in press) [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Ebner NC, Johnson MK. Age-group differences in interference from young and older emotional faces. Cognition and Emotion. 2010;24(7):1095–1116. doi: 10.1080/02699930903128395. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Ebner NC, Johnson MK. Young and older emotional faces: Are there age-group differences in expression identification and memory? Emotion. 2009;9:329–339. doi: 10.1037/a0015179. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Ebner NC, Riediger M, Lindenberger U. FACES—A database of facial expressions in young, middle-aged, and older women and men: Development and validation. Behavioral Research Methods. 2010;42:351–362. doi: 10.3758/BRM.42.1.351. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Ebner NC, Riediger M, Lindenberger U. Schema reliance for developmental goals increases from early to late adulthood: Improvement for the young, loss prevention for the old. Psychology and Aging. 2009;24:310–323. doi: 10.1037/a0015430. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Firestone A, Turk-Browne N, Ryan J. Age-related deficits in face recognition are related to underlying changes in scanning behavior. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition. 2007;14:594–607. doi: 10.1080/13825580600899717. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Fulton A, Bartlett JC. Young and old faces in young and old heads: The factor of age in face recognition. Psychology and Aging. 1991;6:623–630. doi: 10.1037//0882-7974.6.4.623. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Gluth S, Ebner NC, Schmiedek F. Attitudes toward younger and older adults: The German Aging Semantic Differential. International Journal of Behavioral Development. 2010;34:147–158. [Google Scholar]
  21. Goldinger SD, He Y, Papesh MH. Deficits in cross-race face learning: Insights from eye movements and pupillometry. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 2009;35:1105–1122. doi: 10.1037/a0016548. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Green D, Swets J. Signal detection theory and psychophysics. New York: Wiley; 1966. [Google Scholar]
  23. Greenwald AG, Nosek BA, Banaji MR. Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: I. An improved scoring algorithm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2003;85:197–216. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.197. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  24. Harrison V, Hole GJ. Evidence for a contact-based explanation of the own-age bias in face recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 2009;16:264–269. doi: 10.3758/PBR.16.2.264. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  25. Henderson JM, Williams CC, Falk RJ. Eye movements are functional during face learning. Memory & Cognition. 2005;33:98–106. doi: 10.3758/bf03195300. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  26. Hummert ML, Garstka TA, O’Brien LT, Greenwald AG, Mellott DS. Using the implicit association test to measure age differences in implicit social cognitions. Psychology and Aging. 2002;17:482–495. doi: 10.1037//0882-7974.17.3.482. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  27. Isaacowitz DM, Wadlinger HA, Goren D, Wilson HR. Is there an age-related positivity effect in visual attention? A comparison of two methodologies. Emotion. 2006;6:511–516. doi: 10.1037/1528-3542.6.3.511. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  28. Kite ME, Stockdale GD, Whitley BE, Johnson BT. Attitudes toward younger and older adults: An updated meta-analytic review. Journal of Social Issues. 2005;61:241–266. [Google Scholar]
  29. Knight M, Seymour TL, Gaunt JT, Baker C, Nesmith K, Mather M. Aging and goal-directed emotional attention: Distraction reverses emotional biases. Emotion. 2007;7:705–714. doi: 10.1037/1528-3542.7.4.705. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  30. Knox VJ, Gekoski WL, Kelly LE. The Age Group Evaluation and Description (AGED) Inventory: A new instrument for assessing stereotypes of and attitudes toward age groups. International Journal of Aging and Human Development. 1995;40:31–55. doi: 10.2190/8CUC-4XK8-M33K-07YD. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  31. Lamont AC, Stewart-Williams S, Podd J. Face recognition and aging: Effects of target age and memory load. Memory and Cognition. 2005;33:1017–1024. doi: 10.3758/bf03193209. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  32. Meissner CA, Brigham JC. Thirty years of investigating the own-race bias in memory for faces: A meta-analytic review. Psychology, Public Policy, & Law. 2001;7:3–35. [Google Scholar]
  33. Murphy NA, Isaacowitz DM. Age effects and gaze patterns in recognizing emotional expressions: An in-depth look at gaze measures and covariates. Cognition & Emotion. 2010;24:436–452. [Google Scholar]
  34. Rogers TB, Kuiper NA, Kirker WS. Self-reference and the encoding of personal information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1977;35:677–688. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.35.9.677. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  35. Schneider W, Eschman A, Zuccolotto A. E-Prime reference guide. Pittsburgh, PA: Psychology Software Tools Inc; 2002. [Google Scholar]
  36. Sullivan S, Ruffman T, Hutton S. Age differences in emotion recognition skills and the visual scanning of emotion faces. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences. 2007;62B:P53–P60. doi: 10.1093/geronb/62.1.p53. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  37. Symons CS, Johnson BT. The self-reference effect in memory: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin. 1997;121:371–394. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.121.3.371. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  38. Valentine T. A unified account of the effects of distinctiveness, inversion, and race in face recognition. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 1991;43A:161–204. doi: 10.1080/14640749108400966. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  39. Wechsler D. Manual for the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) New York: Psychological Corporation; 1981. [Google Scholar]
  40. Wong B, Cronin-Golomb A, Neargarder SA. Patterns of visual scanning as predictors of emotion identification in normal aging. Neuropsychology. 2005;19:739–749. doi: 10.1037/0894-4105.19.6.739. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

RESOURCES