Abstract: Previous research using morphed stimuli has demonstrated that the right hemisphere may be preferentially involved in self-face recognition. To test this further, we employed a face-identification task and examined hand response differences in Chinese college students. Thirteen right-handed volunteers were presented ‘movies’ in which one face morphed into another. They were told to stop the ‘movies’ when the face looked like the end face more than the start face. The frames of the movie were pictures in which famous faces were combined with the participants’ faces (self) or their good friends’ faces (familiar). The results demonstrated that when responding with the left hand, participants had a tendency to identify the morphed images as their own face. The left hand advantage of self-face recognition was consistent with previous findings. However, the left-hand advantage also existed in familiar-face recognition under certain trials, which differs with results from Western participants. This difference is consistent with the idea of an “Independent” and “Interdependent” self. We suggest that research on the self in neuropsychology may need to consider the complexity of culture and context.

Key words: self-awareness, hemispheric differences, laterality, consciousness