In daily life, faces are often memorized within contexts involving interpersonal interactions. However, little is known about whether interpersonal interaction-related contexts influence face memory. The present study aimed to understand this question by investigating how social comparison-related context affects face encoding and recognition. To address this issue, 40 participants were informed that they and another player each played a monetary game and were then presented with both of their outcomes (either monetary gain or loss). Subsequently, participants were shown the face of the player whom they were just paired with. After all the faces had been encoded, participants were asked to perform a sudden old/new recognition task involving these faces. The results showed that, during the encoding phase, another player's monetary gain, compared to loss, resulted in more negative responses in the N170 and early posterior negativity (EPN)/N250 to relevant players’ faces when participants encountered monetary loss and a smaller late positive potential (LPP) response irrespective of self-related outcomes. In the subsequent recognition phase, preceding another player's monetary gain as compared to loss led to better recognition performance and stronger EPN/N250 and LPP responses to the faces of relevant players when participants had lost some amount of money. These findings suggest that the social comparison-related context, particularly self-disadvantageous outcomes in the context, influences the memory of comparators’ faces.

中文翻译：

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与他人的比较会影响他们面部的编码和识别：行为和 ERP 证据

在日常生活中，面孔常常是在涉及人际互动的背景下被记住的。然而，人们对人际互动相关环境是否影响面部记忆知之甚少。本研究旨在通过调查与社会比较相关的环境如何影响面部编码和识别来理解这个问题。为了解决这个问题，40 名参与者被告知，他们和另一名玩家各自玩了一场金钱游戏，然后向他们展示了他们的两种结果（金钱收益或损失）。随后，参与者会看到刚刚与之配对的玩家的面孔。对所有面孔进行编码后，参与者被要求执行涉及这些面孔的突然旧/新识别任务。结果表明，在编码阶段，与损失相比，另一位玩家的金钱收益会导致当参与者遇到金钱损失时，N170 和早期后验消极性 (EPN)/N250 对相关玩家的面部产生更多的负面反应，而后期的负面反应更小。正电位（LPP）反应，无论自我相关结果如何。在随后的识别阶段，当参与者损失了一定金额时，将另一个玩家的金钱收益与损失进行比较会导致更好的识别性能以及对相关玩家的面部更强的 EPN/N250 和 LPP 响应。这些发现表明，与社会比较相关的背景，特别是背景中的自我不利结果，会影响比较者面孔的记忆。