Configural processing advantage for Mongoloid than Caucasian faces during the structure coding stage

Configural processing is considered to be the hallmark of face expertise, which has been widely investigated by face global inversion (inversion effect) and local inversion (Thatcher effect). Using a passive detection task in which face stimuli are task-irrelevant, both the face inversion effect and the Thatcher effect on race perception of faces were investigated. We found that although the N170 inversion effect (enhanced and delayed N170 for inverted than upright condition) was similar across races of faces, Chinese participants showed a larger N170 Thatcher effect (enhanced N170 to Thatcherized faces than normal faces) for Mongoloid faces. The present data indicates the perceptual advantage of configural changes for in-group than out-group faces.