This study integrates agent research with a neurocognitive technique to study how character faces affect cognitive processing. The N170 event-related potential (ERP) was used to study face processing during simple decision-making tasks. Twenty-five adults responded to facial expressions (fear/neutral) presented in three designs (cartoon/agents/photographs). Behavioral and ERP results indicated that photographs of faces elicited the most robust neural activity in perceptual processing, as well as the most rapid and accurate motor responses during decision tasks. However, during a memory test, cartoon faces elicited the most accurate facial recognition memory. Findings suggest that realistic characters facilitate perception and decision-making but not necessarily recognition memory. (Contains 3 tables and 4 figures.)