Present self, past self and close-other: Event-related potential study of face and name detection

•Past and present images of self-faces as well as one’s own family and marital names were used to address the past self and present self.•Present self-face/name and the past self-face/name were associated with similar P300 responses.•P300 to the past self-face was enhanced in comparison to P300 to the close-other’s face.•No difference between the past self-name and the close-other’s name was observed.

A growing body of evidence suggests that information regarding the past self and other people is processed similarly. However, there is not much evidence supporting this notion at the neural level. In this event-related potential (ERP) study we examined processing of one’s own marital and family name (i.e., present and past self-name, respectively) and images of present and past self-face in comparison to names and faces of others (the close-other, famous and unknown person). Amplitudes of P300 (a late ERP component associated with attention, emotion, and autobiographical memory) to self-face and self-name, either present or past, was enhanced in comparison to famous and unknown faces and names. No differences, however, were observed between the past and present self-names as well as between past and present self-faces. Moreover, P300 amplitude to the past self-face was enhanced in the right hemisphere in comparison to the close-other’s face, whereas P300 amplitudes to the past self-name and the close-other’s name did not differ. Thus, our results indicated that information related to non-physical aspects of the past self were processed similarly to the close-other.