Self-other discrimination in face recognition depending on personal familiarity: investigating a sample consisting of Japanese and Han Chinese women.

Authors

Wenxiao Fang, Kenta Eguchi, Takao Fukui

Published in

Psychological research. Volume 90. Issue 4. Jul 06, 2026. Epub Jul 06, 2026.

Abstract

This study explored how the inclusion of others in the self during face recognition is modulated by personal familiarity, cultural background within East Asia, and autistic traits. Female Japanese and Han Chinese university students completed the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) questionnaire and performed a self-other discrimination task using images of their own face morphed with that of a friend or stranger of the same sex. Thresholds and widths were calculated by fitting a psychometric function to each participant's responses. In both groups, the threshold in the self-friend morphing condition was significantly lower than in the self-unknown morphing condition, and the width in the self-friend morphing condition was significantly larger than in the self-unknown morphing condition, supporting the concept of inclusion of close others in the self and indicating a blurred boundary between the self and close friends. Regarding cultural differences, Japanese participants showed a higher threshold than Chinese participants in the self-unknown condition, whereas no group difference was observed in the self-friend condition. Furthermore, multiple regression analyses revealed that social skill, a subscale of the AQ, was significantly associated with the thresholds in the self-unknown condition, but not in the self-friend condition. This study extends prior research by demonstrating that personal familiarity strongly modulates self-other discrimination in East Asian females and highlights the importance of considering individuals' autistic traits and cultural differences, even within the same cultural region, in face recognition research. STATEMENT OF PUBLIC SIGNIFICANCE: Recognizing faces is vital for social life. In Japanese and Han Chinese women, close friendships blur the self-other boundary, and the recognition of unknown faces is linked to social skills. When judging blended images made from their own face and a stranger's face, Japanese participants need more of their own facial features than Chinese participants do when deciding that the face is their own. These findings deepen our understanding of social cognition in diverse societies.

PMID:
42406109
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 06 Jul 2026.

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