Self-face advantage over familiar and unfamiliar faces: A three-level meta-analytic approach

Despite the increasing number of researchers interested in self-face, so far, no study has summarized the behavioral findings that contribute to the debate on self-face advantage. Most studies have focused on neural correlates of the self, although functional uniqueness can also be considered an important criterion for determining whether a stimulus is unique. The present meta-analysis systematically compared reaction time (RT) responses for self-face with other face identities across 54 studies. Different moderator factors were tested: familiarity, identity, head angle, laterality, and culture. We used a three-level meta-analytic approach, which is the best approach to account for the dependency of effect sizes. Results showed a significant (Hedges’s g_av = ?0.298) effect size, indicating faster RT for self-face than for other faces in general. Except for culture, none of the moderators employed significantly impacted on the main effect. Regarding culture, results showed that participants from Western cultures tend to respond faster to their own face than to other people’s faces, while for participants from Eastern cultures, the effect was not significant. In summary, our results indicate that the self-face benefits from an advantage in terms of reaction time and may be considered a unique stimulus. Implications and limitations of the results are discussed.