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Influence of retention interval on accuracy for own-race vs. other-race faces in Experiment 2. Error bars represent standard error values.
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The current research examined whether the cross-race effect (CRE) was evident in perceptual identification tasks and the extent to which certain boundary conditions moderated the effect. Across two experiments, a significant CRE was observed in measures of accuracy and response latency. As predicted, Experiment 1 showed that the CRE was exacerbated...
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... The long-established (Feingold, 1914) and robust (Meissner & Brigham, 2001) phenomenon of outgroup homogeneity in face confusion has been exploited in other experimental paradigms. Among them are sorting tasks, in which different photos of the same face have to be sorted into the same pile (Laurence et al., 2016), but also memory-based measures such as the ABX paradigm (Levin, 2000;Liberman et al., 1961;Marcon et al., 2010), in which participants have to indicate which of two previously presented portraits (A, B) shows the same face as a third new one (X, also termed "telling faces together" by Oruc et al., 2019), and the Cambridge Face Memory Test (McKone et al., 2012), in which a previously seen face has to be picked from a number of distractors. These different tasks each build on the same phenomenon in a slightly different perceptual domain (e.g., ambient faces, shortterm recognition memory, long-term recognition memory, "telling faces together"; Oruc et al., 2019). ...
White people confuse Black faces more than their own-race faces. This is an example of the other-race effect, commonly measured by the other-race face recognition task. Like this task, the “Who said what?” paradigm uses within-race confusions in memory, but to measure social categorization strength. The former finds a strongly asymmetrical pattern of interrace perception, the other-race effect, yet the latter usually finds symmetrical patterns (equally strong categorization of own-race and other-race faces). In a “Who said what?” meta-analysis, racial categorization and individuation across races were only weakly asymmetrical (Study 1, n = 2,669). We aimed to resolve this empirical misalignment. As tested in other-race face recognition tasks, the weak asymmetry was not due to the limited number of portrait stimuli (Study 2, N = 99) nor to the longer duration of stimulus presentation in the “Who said what?” task (Study 4, n = 358). Pairing portraits with statements reduced the other-race effect (Study 3, n = 126). Showing each portrait repeatedly also reduced the other-race effect (Study 4, n = 358; Study 5, n = 470) but did not decrease infrahumanization of Black portraits (Study 6, n = 487). Consequently, presenting portraits only once in the “Who said what?” paradigm (Study 7, N = 112) resulted in strong interrace categorization and individuation asymmetries. This finding bridges a central conceptual gap between the other-race effect and social categorization strength.
... , increased developmental exposure (Anzures et al., 2012;Heron-Delaney et al., 2011;Sangrigoli & De Schonen, 2004), caricatured exemplars (Rodrguez et al., 2008), increased learning time (Marcon et al., 2010), and learning identities from multiple images (Cavazos, Noyes, & O'Toole, 2019). However, there are limitations to each of these strategies. ...
Face identification is particularly prone to error when individuals identify people of a race other than their own - a phenomenon known as the other-race effect (ORE). Here, we show that collaborative "wisdom-of-crowds" decision-making substantially improves face identification accuracy for own- and other-race faces over individuals working alone. In two online experiments, East Asian and White individuals recognized own- and other-race faces as individuals and as part of a collaborative dyad. Collaboration never proved more beneficial in a social setting than when individual identification decisions were combined computationally. The reliable benefit of non-social collaboration may stem from its ability to avoid the potential negative outcomes of group diversity such as conflict. Consistent with this benefit, the racial diversity of collaborators did not influence either general or race-specific face identification accuracy. Our findings suggest that collaboration between two individuals is a promising strategy for improving cross-race face identification that may translate effectively into forensic and eyewitness settings.
... , increased developmental exposure (Anzures et al., 2012;Heron-Delaney et al., 2011;Sangrigoli & De Schonen, 2004), caricatured exemplars (Rodrguez et al., 2008), increased learning time (Marcon et al., 2010), and learning identities from multiple images (Cavazos, Noyes, & O'Toole, 2019). However, there are limitations to each of these strategies. ...
Collaborative "wisdom-of-crowds" decision making improves face identification accuracy over individuals working alone. We examined whether collaboration improves both own- and other-race face identification. In Experiment 1, participants completed an online face-identification task on their own and with a same-race partner (East Asian dyads, N = 27; Caucasian dyad, N = 31). Collaborative decisions were completed as part of a social dyad (completing the task together) and a non-social dyad (individual scores fused independently). Social and non-social collaboration improved own- and other-race face identification accuracy equally. In Experiment 2, we examined the impact of racial diversity on collaboration for different-race dyads (N = 25), East Asian same-race dyads (N = 25), and Caucasian same-race dyads (N = 28). Performance improved equivalently for same- and different-race dyads. Collaboration can be a valuable tool for improving own- and other-race face identification in social and non-social settings.
... Other studies have suggested that increased encoding rate explains the own-race advantage in WM tasks. Marcon and colleagues (Marcon, Meissner, Frueh, Susa, & MacLin, 2010) investigated how a sample item's presentation time affects delayed face matching. They reported significant cross-race effects in 100-and 500-ms conditions, but not when the presentation time was 1,000 or 1,500 ms, suggesting that face encoding is more accurate and/or rapid for own-race faces than for other-race faces. ...
... The reduced memory precision for other-race faces caused by insufficient encoding time (X. supports the view that reduced recognition of other-race faces under a short encoding-time (Marcon et al., 2010) was caused by reduced fidelity of WM representations for other-race faces, rather than a failure in the storage of other-race faces. Stelter and Degner (2018) presented faces for 1,500 ms (Set Size 3), 2,000 ms (Set Size 4), or 2,500 ms (Set Size 5) using a change-detection task and reported that WM capacity was higher for own-race faces. ...
... No backward masking was used in Experiment 1 after the presentation of the sample array, similar to previous studies examining the cross-race effect in face memory (Marcon et al., 2010;Sessa & Dalmaso, 2016;X. Zhou et al., 2018). ...
Previous research has shown that working memory (WM) performance for own‐race faces is better than for other‐race faces. We focused on the storage capacity and encoding rate to identify WM characteristics that facilitate own‐race face recognition. We investigated WM's temporal dynamics for own‐ and other‐race faces to separately identify the contribution of storage capacity and encoding rate on the own‐race advantage in WM. We presented Asian participants with Asian faces as own‐race faces and Black faces as other‐race faces in two experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 indicated a higher storage capacity for own‐race faces, and Experiment 2 also indicated an increased encoding rate for own‐race faces when backward masking was used. Moreover, there was no association between storage capacity and encoding rate. These findings suggest that both storage capacity and encoding rate independently contribute to the cross‐race effect in WM.
... The ORE emerges early in development with infants as young as 9 months of age showing preferential recognition for own-race faces, with initial exposure to predominantly own-race faces shaping adult perception and performance (Kelly et al., 2007;Meissner & Brigham, 2001;O'Toole, Deffenbacher, Valentin, & Abdi, 1994;Walker & Tanaka, 2003). The ORE is present both in the recognition of learned other-race faces (Marcon, Meissner, Frueh, Susa, & MacLin, 2010;McKone et al., 2012;Meissner & Brigham, 2001), and importantly, for the purposes of this study, in face matching tasks (Kokje, Bindemann, & Megreya, 2018;Megreya, White, & Burton, 2011;Meissner, Susa, & Ross, 2013). The presence of the effect in matching tasks suggests poorer encoding of other-race faces during early perceptual processing (Walker & Tanaka, 2003;Zhao & Bülthoff, 2013). ...
The accurate identification of an unfamiliar individual from a face photo is a critical factor in several applied situations (e.g. border control). Despite this, matching faces to photographic ID is highly prone to error. In lieu of effective training measures which could reduce face matching errors, the selection of ‘super‐recognisers’ (SRs) provides the most promising route to combat misidentification or fraud. However, to date, super‐recognition has been defined and tested using almost exclusively ‘own‐race’ face memory and matching tests. Here, across three studies we test Caucasian participants on tests of own‐race (GFMT, MFMT, CFMT) and other‐race (EFMT, CFMT‐C) face identification. Our findings show that compared to controls, high performing typical recognisers (Studies 1 & 2) and super‐recognisers (Study 3) show superior performance on both the own‐ and other‐race tests. These findings suggest that recruiting SRs in ethnically diverse applied settings could be advantageous.
... Despite its real-world applicability, surprisingly few studies have examined the cross-race effect as it pertains to the task performed by travel document screeners, where a simultaneous (or rapid sequential) comparison is made between a passport photo and the person presenting the photo to the screener. Importantly, Meissner et al. (2013) demonstrated that the deleterious effects of cross-race identification are evident in this perceptual discrimination paradigm and that contextual factors (e.g., age disparity between face and photo, the use of disguises) may moderate the cross-race effect during this task (Marcon, Meissner, Frueh, Susa, & MacLin, 2009;Megreya, White, & Burton, 2011;Sporer, Trinkl, & Guberova, 2007). The researchers further found that race appears to influence participants' calibration between confidence and accuracy such that the match between subjective confidence and objective accuracy was greater for own-versus other-race faces. ...
Purpose: Travel document screeners play an important role in international security when determining whether a photo ID matches the tendering individual. Psychological research indicates when conditions involve low base-rates of “imposter” photos, document screeners change their response criterion for rendering a “match” determination. The primary purpose of the current experiments was to examine the nature of this base-rate criterion shift, free from experimental bias, for both own- and other-race faces. Further, experiment 2 examined how low base-rate conditions might moderate a cross-race effect in the calibration between confidence and accuracy.
Method: In two experiments participants completed an 80-trial task where they were asked to determine whether a passport photo matched the photo of a tendering individual. The base-rate of imposter IDs and the race of the people in the photos was manipulated across participants. Signal detection measures and the calibration between confidence and accuracy were analyzed.
Results: In each experiment low base-rates of imposter identifications induced a conservative criterion shift such that people were more likely to declare that faces “mismatch”. Further, race and imposter base-rate interacted to influence the confidence-accuracy calibration, suggesting a cross-race effect on calibration was exacerbated in the low imposter base-rate condition, and low base-rate conditions also elicited greater overconfidence for other- relative to own-race faces.
Conclusions: Free from experimental bias, low imposter base-rates induced a conservative response criterion, leading participants to render more “mismatch” decisions. Moreover, low base-rates moderated cross-race effects in the calibration between confidence and accuracy, and in a measure of overconfidence.
... Individuals tend to process racial ingroup and outgroup members differently and these differences have important implications for intergroup relations (Marcon et al., 2010;DeGutis et al., 2013;Hayward et al., 2013;Kawakami et al., 2014Kawakami et al., , 2018. For example, research shows that individuals tend to remember faces of their own race better than those of other races (i.e., own-race bias, crossrace effect) (for a review see Meissner and Brigham, 2001;Walker and Tanaka, 2003;Walker and Hewstone, 2006;Mondloch et al., 2010;Zhao et al., 2014;Wan et al., 2015). ...
Categorizing and individual as a racial ingroup or outgroup member results in processing and memory differences. However, despite processing differences for racial ingroups and outgroups, very little is known about processing of racial ingroup and outgroup members during intergroup contexts. Thus, the present research investigated attention and memory differences for racial ingroup and outgroup members during competition for attention (i.e., intergroup contexts). In experiment 1, event-related potentials (ERPs) were obtained while participants completed a working memory task that presented 4 faces (2 Black, 2 White) at once then, following a short delay, were probed to indicate the spatial location of one of the faces. Participants showed better location memory for Black than White faces. During encoding, ERP results revealed differences based on the race of the face in P300 amplitudes, such that there was greater motivated processing when attending to Black faces. At probe, the N170 indicated enhanced early processing of Black faces and greater LPCs were associated with better recollection of Black face location. In a follow-up study using the same task, we examined attention and working memory biases for Asian and White faces in Caucasian and Asian participants. Results for both Caucasian and Asian participants indicated better working memory for Asian relative to White faces. Together, results indicate that during intergroup contexts, racial minority faces capture attention, resulting in better memory for those faces. The study underscores that examining racial biases with single stimuli paradigms obscures important aspects of attention and memory biases during intergroup contexts.
... The other-race effect (ORE) refers to a phenomenon wherein faces of an observer's own race tend to be recognized more accurately than faces of another race. This effect has been reported consistently in the face recognition and eyewitness identification literature (see, e.g., Malpass & Kravitz, 1969;Marcon, Meissner, Frueh, Susa, & MacLin, 2010), and has been replicated widely with different ethnic groups (e.g., Bothwell, Brigham, & Malpass, 1989;Chiroro & Valentine, 1995;Walker & Tanaka, 2003), pointing to a remarkably robust phenomenon. While the effect has been demonstrated typically with recognition memory tasks, which require the identification of newly learned faces after an interval, it is also observed with tasks in which memory factors are minimized (Megreya & Bindemann, 2009;Megreya, White, & Burton, 2011). ...
The other-race effect in face identification has been documented widely in memory tasks, but it persists also in identity-matching tasks, in which memory contributions are minimized. Whereas this points to a perceptual locus for this effect, it remains unresolved whether matching performance with same- and other-race faces is driven by shared cognitive mechanisms. To examine this question, this study compared Arab and Caucasian observers' ability to match faces of their own race with their ability to match faces of another race using one-to-one (Experiment 1) and one-to-many (Experiment 2) identification tasks. Across both experiments, Arab and Caucasian observers demonstrated reliable other-race effects at a group level. At an individual level, substantial variation in accuracy was found, but performance with same-race and other-race faces correlated consistently and strongly. This indicates that the abilities to match same- and other-race faces share a common cognitive mechanism.
... Materials. Photographs of 16 White and 16 Latino male faces were selected from the database of Latino and White male faces used by Marcon, Meissner, Frueh, Susa, and MacLin (2009) and maintained by Meissner 4 . An additional 2 White and 2 Latino faces were used in the practice test phase. ...
... People may detect own-race faces quicker in the change detection task [8] [9], which requires processing at the individual level. Other studies have also suggested that there is an other-race advantage in the race category processing (e.g., to judge the race of a target face) [17] [18] and an Own-Race Advantage in the individuation processing (e.g., to identify a target face) [1] [18][19][20]. Therefore, the other-race advantage in the race-searching task [10] may be a result of a categorization effect (the tendency to categorize other-race faces) or an attention effect (other-race faces capture attention more easily). The own-race advantage in change detection tasks [8] [9] might result from the individuation effect (a tendency to individuate own-race faces, or greater sensitivity to changes to own-race faces) or an attention effect (paying more attention to own-race faces results in being more easily able to detect changes to own-race faces). ...
... The accuracy for all participants was above 80% (see Table 1 We found a significant own-race advantage in a human face search task, which was inconsistent with the detection preference towards other-race faces in the race searching task reported by Levin [10]. The present ORA result was consistent with the own-race advantage in a task which requires individualization [18][19][20]. This provides a possibility that the own-race advantage in the current study comes from individual processing rather than attention. ...
... As we argued in the introduction, the discrepancy between these studies is due to the different processing levels required by the tasks. There is an other-race advantage in race category processing [10] [17] [18] and an own-race advantage in individuation processing [1] [18][19][20]. Therefore, the present study provides important evidence that there is an own-race advantage in the detection and differentiation of human/non-human faces. The own-race advantage at the human/non-human level of face processing implies a preference for own-race faces in early perceptual processing. ...
Studies have shown that people are better at recognizing human faces from their own-race than from other-races, an effect often termed the Own-Race Advantage. The current study investigates whether there is an Own-Race Advantage in attention and its neural correlates. Participants were asked to search for a human face among animal faces. Experiment 1 showed a classic Own-Race Advantage in response time both for Chinese and Black South African participants. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), Experiment 2 showed a similar Own-Race Advantage in response time for both upright faces and inverted faces. Moreover, the latency of N2pc for own-race faces was earlier than that for other-race faces. These results suggested that own-race faces capture attention more efficiently than other-race faces.
