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Author accepted manuscript: Can we look past people's race? The effect of combining race and a non-racial group affiliation on holistic processing
Abstract
Face memory is worse for races other than one's own, in part because other-race faces are less holistically processed. Both experiential factors and social factors have been suggested as reasons for this other-race effect. Direct measures of holistic processing for race and a non-racial category in faces have never been employed, making it difficult to establish how experience and group membership interact. This study is the first to directly explore holistic processing of own-race and other-race faces, also classed by a non-racial category (university affiliation). Using a crossover design, White undergraduates (in Australia) completed the part-whole task for White (American) and Black South African faces attributed to the University of Western Sydney (own) and University of Sydney (other). Black South African undergraduates completed the same task for White and Black South African faces attributed to the University of Cape Town (own) and Stellenbosch University (other). It was hypothesised that own-race faces would be processed more holistically than other-race faces and that own-university faces would be processed more holistically than other-university faces. Results showed a significant effect of race for White participants (White faces were matched more accurately than Black faces), and wholes were matched more accurately than parts, suggesting holistic processing, but only for White faces. No effect of university was found. Black South African participants, who have more experience with other-race faces, processed wholes better than parts irrespective of race and university category. Overall, results suggest that experiential factors of race outweigh any effects of a non-racial shared group membership. The quality of experience for the named populations, stimuli presentation, and degree of individuation are discussed.
... However, regardless of the processes used, own-group faces are still better recognized than other-group faces (Sadozai, Kempen, Tredoux, & Robbins, 2018), and own-group and othergroup faces appear to be processed di↵erently (K. J. Hancock & Rhodes, 2008). ...
... J. Hancock & Rhodes, 2008). While owngroup faces are more likely to be processed configurally, other-group faces are more likely to be processed featurally (Hugenberg & Corneille, 2009;Michel, Rossion, Han, Chung, & Caldara, 2006;Sadozai et al., 2018;Tanaka & Simonyi, 39 THE EFFECT OF TRAINING ON THE OWN-GROUP BIAS Tania Wittwer 2016). Conversely, featural processing is more likely to be used for unfamiliar other-group faces because of a deficit in the perceptual experience reducing the use of configural processing (Byatt & Rhodes, 2004;G. ...
... In addition to developing the ability to focusing on critical features of other-group faces (Hills & Lewis, 2011;Hills et al., 2013), expertise also leads to the development of a more configural processing (Chance, Goldstein, & McBride, 1975;K. J. Hancock & Rhodes, 2008;Sadozai et al., 2018). ...
The own-group bias in face recognition (OGB) is the greater facility to distinguish and recognize people from one's own group at the expense of people from other-groups. The existence of the OGB has been studied for many years, however, very little research focuses on finding a way to decrease or eliminate it, through training. Reporting five studies involving memory or matching tasks, the aim of the present thesis was to develop and to explore to what extent training can decrease or remove the OGB. French White participants or South African White, Black and Coloured participants took part in different studies, using Black and White faces as stimuli. In each study, White participants from both countries presented the expected OGB prior to any intervention. However, the presence of the OGB in South African Black participants was detected only in one (matching task) study, instead recording a higher discrimination performance by Black participants for White faces in the other studies. As expected, South African Coloured participants did not display increased discrimination performance for any of the other stimuli groups, both being out-group stimuli. Results from the training studies revealed either (a) no effect of a distributed training in feature focus over 5 weeks; (b) an increase of the OGB after a focus on critical facial features; (c) a decrease of the OGB in a task-specific training using pictures whose quality had been manipulated, and; (d) an important implication of the presence/absence of the target in a field detection study. With some promising results, the present work contributes to our understanding of how training could be used to improve face-recognition, and especially other-group face recognition.
... Thus, they might be more inclined to encode the specific features of White faces compared with other face types (Gross, 2009). This interpretation is akin to other research showing that White Australian undergraduates displayed more holistic processing of White than Black faces, whereas Black South African undergraduates displayed holistic processing of both White and Black faces (Sadozai et al., 2019). Given the higher status of Whites in South Africa, the Black South African participants might have been motivated to holistically process their faces similar to how White Americans better recognize individuals who are Black when they have high-power positions compared with lowpower positions (Shriver & Hugenberg, 2010). ...
Individuals who are Hispanic or Latino make up a substantial portion of the U.S. and world population yet are vastly underrepresented as both participants and stimuli in the face-perception literature. Perceiving and recognizing faces are critical components of everyday social interactions, but cross-category effects (difficulty recognizing faces from other races or ethnicities) can hinder social interactions. Cross-category effects are the most commonly studied face-perception topic with these ethnic groups, but this empirical knowledge should be expanded via culturally relevant considerations. In this article, I describe (a) errors individuals display when categorizing target faces, (b) how social status influences identity and cross-category effects, (c) the potential impact of flexible and heterogeneous social identities on face processing, (d) a critical need for more developmental research, and (e) methodological expansions and generalizability concerns. Thus, I propose important directions for future studies to address these issues and advance knowledge in the field.
... For example, in a study by Wright et al. (2003), Black South Africans, White South Africans, and White English participants all showed better recognition accuracy for White than Black faces (see also Sadozai et al., 2019). Although one alternative explanation for these findings is related to the stimuli (e.g., White faces were more distinct), another explanation is related to motivation. ...
The human face is arguably the most important of all social stimuli because it provides so much valuable information about others. Therefore, one critical factor for successful social communication is the ability to process faces. In general, a wide body of social cognitive research has demonstrated that perceivers are better at extracting information from their own‐race compared to other‐race faces and that these differences can be a barrier to positive cross‐race relationships. The primary objective of the present paper was to provide an overview of how people process faces in diverse contexts, focusing on racial ingroup and outgroup members within one nation and across nations. To achieve this goal, we first broadly describe social cognitive research on categorization processes related to ingroups vs. outgroups. Next, we briefly examine two prominent mechanisms (experience and motivation) that have been used to explain differences in recognizing facial identities and identifying emotions when processing ingroup and outgroup racial faces within nations. Then, we explore research in this domain across nations and cultural explanations, such as norms and practices, that supplement the two proposed mechanisms. Finally, we propose future cross‐cultural research that has the potential to help us better understand the role of these key mechanisms in processing ingroup and outgroup faces.
Contact with racial outgroups is thought to reduce the cross-race recognition deficit (CRD), the tendency for people to recognize same-race (i.e., ingroup) faces more accurately than cross-race (i.e., outgroup) faces. In 2001, Meissner and Brigham conducted a meta-analysis in which they examined this question and found a meta-analytic effect of r = −.13. We conduct a new meta-analysis based on 20 years of additional data to update the estimate of this relationship and examine theoretical and methodological moderators of the effect. We find a meta-analytic effect of r = −.15. In line with theoretical predictions, we find some evidence that the magnitude of this relationship is stronger when contact occurs during childhood rather than adulthood. We find no evidence that the relationship differs for measures of holistic/configural processing compared with normal processing. Finally, we find that the magnitude of the relationship depends on the operationalization of contact and that it is strongest when contact is manipulated. We consider recommendations for further research on this topic.
The present research uses an event sampling method to test whether, compared to same-race interactions, everyday cross-race contact is better characterized by the presence of negative affect or the absence of positive affect. Everyday intergroup interactions have some positive and negative aspects, so the present research independently assesses positive affect and negative affect along with felt understanding and misunderstanding. Across 3 studies (Study 1, n = 107; Study 2, n = 112; Study 3, n = 146), we find that European, Asian, and African Americans report that everyday cross-race interactions generate less positive affect and felt understanding than same-race interactions. Yet cross-race interactions entail no more negative affect than same-race interactions. This supports the idea that positive emotions are mostly reserved for and experienced with the ingroup, rather than the idea that people feel animosity toward the outgroup. Given that nearly half of racial-minority group member’s everyday interactions are cross-race, their daily encounters are typically less positive than those of racial-majority group members. Feeling less well understood as a result of cross-race contact may increase the likelihood that racial-minority group members question whether they belong on a college campus.
AIMS. The other-race effect (ORE) refers to poor ability to tell apart members of other races. Here, we contrast two theoretical approaches to explaining the ORE. The first is a lack of visual experience, leading to perceptual mechanisms for individuating faces (e.g., face-space dimensions) being tuned to one race and thus less useful for discriminating faces of other races. The second is the Hugenberg et al (2007) hypothesis that the ORE is due to lack of motivation and can be overcome by instructions to pay greater attention to individuating information in the other-race faces. METHOD. Unlike Hugenberg, we tested the full crossover design (Asian and Caucasian observers, on Asian and Caucasian faces), tested face recognition rather than photograph recognition by using new images of the person (Cambridge Face Memory Test format), and asked observers to report their effort applied to individuating other-race faces. Subjects also reported multiple contact variables (e.g., percentage of Asians in their classes) separated into different life stages (primary school, secondary school, and now). RESULTS. Findings showed (a) in our populations, the Hugenberg motivation-to-individuate instructions produced no reduction in the ORE (but improved memory overall); (b) participants were highly motivated to individuate other-race faces even without the Hugenberg instructions, yet showed a strong ORE; (c) the size of individuals' ORE correlated with their contact with different races in childhood; (d) there was no correlation between ORE and either social attitudes (willingness to marry other-race person) or recent contact as adults. CONCLUSIONS. Results support the lack-of-visual-experience theory not the lack-of-motivation theory. Increasing attention to other-race faces is not sufficient to reduce the ORE. Instead, visual experience is required. Moreover, this experience with other-race faces must be obtained in childhood, suggesting tuning of face mechanisms to particular subtypes of faces has a period of greater plasticity during development.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2013
Psychological research has consistently demonstrated that individuals are better at discriminating faces of their own race when compared with faces of another, less familiar race. Given the racial/ethnic diversity of individuals screened by security personnel at transportation and border checkpoints, it is important to understand whether the cross-race effect may play a role in simultaneous perceptual discrimination tasks that mimic such screening operations. Three experiments assessed the deleterious effects of cross-racial identification in this context. Results demonstrated greater discrimination accuracy for own- versus other-race faces, and a propensity for screeners to be overconfident in their decisions, particularly for other-race persons. Further, perceived age differences between the target and his identification photo and the use of a disguise were found to moderate cross-race effects during this task.
Across a wide range of disciplines and phenomena, a particular theoret ical approach is at the center of attempts to understand human behavior. This theoretical approach, roughly characterized as Subjective Expected Utility (SEU) theory, figures prominently in formal and mathematical theo ries of behavior, as well as in intuitive and implicit analyses of behavior deriving from folk theory. A selection of SEU approaches is described. The SEU approach is then used to develop a theoretical analysis of cross-race social experience and its relation to the cross-racial face recognition phe nomenon.
This article reviews the research on differential recognition for own-versus other-race faces. A meta-analysis of 14 samples revealed that the magnitude of the own-race bias is similar for both Black and White subjects, accounting for about 10o of the variance in recognition accuracy. There is a considerable consistency across studies, indicating that memory for own-race faces is superior to memory for other-race faces. Both Black and White subjects exhibited own-race bias in 79%0 of the samples reviewed.
Recent evidence suggests stronger holistic processing for own-race faces may underlie the own-race advantage in face memory. In previous studies Caucasian participants have demonstrated larger holistic processing effects for Caucasian over Asian faces. However, Asian participants have consistently shown similar sized effects for both Asian and Cau-casian faces. We investigated two proposed explanations for the holistic processing of other-race faces by Asian participants: (1) greater other-race exposure, (2) a general global processing bias. Holistic processing was tested using the part-whole task. Participants were living in predominantly own-race environments and other-race contact was evalu-ated. Despite reporting significantly greater contact with own-race than other-race people, Chinese participants displayed strong holistic processing for both Asian and Caucasian upright faces. In addition, Chinese participants showed no evidence of holistic processing for inverted faces arguing against a general global processing bias explanation. Caucasian participants, in line with previous studies, displayed stronger holistic processing for Cau-casian than Asian upright faces. For inverted faces there were no race-of-face differences. These results are used to suggest that Asians may make more general use of face-specific mechanisms than Caucasians.
Studies of the recognition of faces of an ethnic group different from one's own reveal a robust recognition deficit for faces of the respective out-group (cross-race effect or own-race bias) and a tendency to respond less cautiously with respect to out-group faces. Cross-national comparisons reveal that the cross-race effect appears to be larger among low-contact groups. Although exemplar-based models postulating a multidimensional face space are currently in vogue, some of the more traditional accounts (e.g., the contact hypothesis) should not be dismissed prematurely. An extended exemplar-based model that relates the out-group recognition deficit to the out-group homogeneity effect in social perception and judgment appears promising. An in-group/out-group model (IOM) of face processing is proposed that includes aspects of previous theories and derives new predictions (e.g., a cross-sex or cross-age effect). The IOM attempts to account for the out-group recognition deficit and the more lax response criterion with respect to out-group faces. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Compared memory for faces with memory for other classes of familar and complex objects which, like faces, are also customarily seen only in 1 orientation (mono-oriented). Performance of 4 students was tested when the inspection and test series were presented in the same orientation, either both upright or both inverted, or when the 2 series were presented in opposite orientations. The results show that while all mono-oriented objects tend to be more difficult to remember when upside-down, faces are disproportionately affected. These findings suggest that the difficulty in looking at upside-down faces involves 2 factors: a general factor of familiarity with mono-oriented objects, and a special factor related only to faces. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Campus involvement has been identified as an important predictor of academic persistence and success. We propose a group identification approach to campus involvement and present the results of 3 studies. Study 1 established that group identity was strongly related to campus involvement. Study 2 determined that group identity mediated the relationship between student residency (on-campus vs. off-campus) and campus involvement. Study 3 replicated the prior results, but used a longitudinal design to help rule out alternative explanations. We conclude that group identification, particularly the affective component, plays an important role in campus involvement, and offer suggestions for enhancing group identification and for further research.
A model is presented that traces the origins of the anxiety people experience when interacting with outgroup members to fear of negative psychological or behavioral consequences for the self and fear of negative evaluations by ingroup or outgroup members. Prior relations between the groups, intergroup cognitions, the structure of the situation, and personal experience are hypothesized to determine the amount of anxiety that participants in intergroup interactions experience. It is proposed that high levels of intergroup anxiety amplify normative behavior patterns, cause cognitive and motivational information-processing biases, intensify self-awareness, lead to augmented emotional reactions, and polarize evaluations of outgroup members. Regression analyses of data from Hispanic students indicate that high levels of intergroup anxiety are associated with low levels of contact with outgroup members, stereotyping of outgroup members, and assumed dissimilarity to outgroup members.
Own-race bias, where people are more accurate recognizing faces of people from their own race than other races, can lead to misidentification and, in some cases, innocent people being convicted. This bias was explored in South Africa and England, using Black and White participants. People were shown several photographs of Black and White faces and were later asked if they had seen these faces (and several fillers). In addition, participants were given a questionnaire about inter-racial contact. Cross-race identification accuracy for Black participants was positively correlated with self-reported inter-racial contact. The confidence–accuracy relationship was strongest when making own-race judgements. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Recent studies have demonstrated that requesting individuals to produce a verbal description of a previously seen face can hinder subsequent attempts at identification. This phenomenon, termed ‘verbal overshadowing’, has been studied rather extensively in the face-identification paradigm; however, studies have not always replicated the general effect. Based upon both practical and theoretical interests in the phenomenon, a meta-analysis of 29 effect size comparisons (N = 2018) was conducted. Across the sample of studies there was a small, yet significant, negative effect (Fisher's Zr = −0.12), indicating some degree of verbal impairment or overshadowing. A fixed-effects analysis of several moderating variables demonstrated a significant effect of post-description delay and type of description instruction. The pattern of means indicated that overshadowing effects were more likely to occur when the identification task immediately followed the description task, and when participants were given an elaborative, as opposed to a standard (free recall), instruction during the description task. Inconsistencies in the literature are discussed, as well as various theoretical and applied issues regarding the verbal overshadowing effect. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Recent theory and evidence suggest that the Cross-Race Effect (better recognition for same-race (SR) faces than for cross-race (CR) faces) is due to social-cognitive processes of categorization of out-group members, causing perceivers to attend to category-specifying information of CR faces at the expense of individuating information. Three experiments seek to extend this social-cognitive explanation of the CRE by investigating the extent to which the Cross-Race Effect can be reduced by inducing perceivers to individuate rather than categorize CR faces. In all three experiments, participants who received warning of the Cross-Race Effect prior to encoding, and instructions to individuate out-group members, showed no CRE. Experiment 2 suggests that this elimination of the CRE was not due merely to increased motivation to process all stimuli. This is one of few empirical displays of an elimination of the CRE outside of visual training. Moreover, these results are congenial with Levin’s (2000) feature-selection model, which suggests that the CRE is due to differential social cognitions about in-group and out-group members, rather than to differences in perceptual expertise. By eliciting individuation of out-group members at encoding, the CRE can be eliminated.
Why do some people recognize faces easily and others frequently make mistakes in recognizing faces? Classic behavioral work has shown that faces are processed in a distinctive holistic manner that is unlike the processing of objects. In the study reported here, we investigated whether individual differences in holistic face processing have a significant influence on face recognition. We found that the magnitude of face-specific recognition accuracy correlated with the extent to which participants processed faces holistically, as indexed by the composite-face effect and the whole-part effect. This association is due to face-specific processing in particular, not to a more general aspect of cognitive processing, such as general intelligence or global attention. This finding provides constraints on computational models of face recognition and may elucidate mechanisms underlying cognitive disorders, such as prosopagnosia and autism, that are associated with deficits in face recognition.
Adults are often better at recognising own-race than other-race faces. Unlike previous studies that reported an own-race advantage after administering a single test of either holistic processing or of featural and relational processing, we used a cross-over design and multiple tasks to assess differential processing of faces from a familiar race versus a less familiar race. Caucasian and Chinese adults performed four tasks, each with Caucasian and Chinese faces. Two tasks measured holistic processing: the composite face task and the part/whole task. Both tasks indicated holistic processing of own-race and other-race faces that did not differ in degree. Two tasks measured featural and relational processing: the Jane/Ling task, in which same/ different judgments were made about face pairs that differed in features of their spacing, and the scrambled/blurred task, in which test faces were scrambled (isolates memory for components) or blurred (isolates memory for relations). Both tasks provided evidence of an own-race advantage in both featural and relational processing. We conclude that even when adults process other-race faces holistically, other manifestations of an own-race advantage remain.
The other-race effect (ORE), or the finding that same-race faces are better recognized than other-race faces, is one of the best replicated phenomena in face recognition. The current article reviews existing evidence and theory and proposes a new theoretical framework for the ORE, which argues that the effect results from a confluence of social categorization, motivated individuation, and perceptual experience. This categorization-individuation model offers not only a parsimonious account of both classic and recent evidence for category-based biases in face recognition but also links the ORE to broader evidence and theory in social cognition and face perception. Finally, the categorization-individuation model makes a series of novel predictions for how the ORE can be exacerbated, attenuated, or even eliminated via perceptual and motivational processes, both by improving other-race recognition and by reducing same-race recognition. The authors propose that this new model for the ORE also leads to applied interventions that differ sharply from other theories of the ORE, while simultaneously providing an integrative theoretical framework for future research on the ORE.
We investigated how visual experience with faces of a particular race affects subordinate group-level categorizations in Chinese and Israeli participants living in the respective countries. Categorization of faces by race, gender, and age was examined within subjects with participants who had only minimal experience with the other-race faces. As would be predicted by the previously documented other-race advantage effect, both Chinese and Israeli participants classified the race of the face more quickly and more accurately for other-race than for own-race faces. In contrast, the observers' race did not interact with the race of the rated face either for gender or for age categorization. The absence of these interactions suggests that the physiognomic characteristics that determine the gender and age of a face are universal, rather than race specific. Furthermore, these data suggest that determining the race of a face is not imposed as a first step in face processing, preempting the perception of other category-defining physiognomic characteristics.
Are faces recognized using more holistic representations than other types of stimuli? Taking holistic representation to mean representation without an internal part structure, we interpret the available evidence on this issue and then design new empirical tests. Based on previous research, we reasoned that if a portion of an object corresponds to an explicitly represented part in a hierarchical visual representation, then when that portion is presented in isolation it will be identified relatively more easily than if it did not have the status of an explicitly represented part. The hypothesis that face recognition is holistic therefore predicts that a part of a face will be disproportionately more easily recognized in the whole face than as an isolated part, relative to recognition of the parts and wholes of other kinds of stimuli. This prediction was borne out in three experiments: subjects were more accurate at identifying the parts of faces, presented in the whole object, than they were at identifying the same part presented in isolation, even though both parts and wholes were tested in a forced-choice format and the whole faces differed only by one part. In contrast, three other types of stimuli--scrambled faces, inverted faces, and houses--did not show this advantage for part identification in whole object recognition.
Much research indicates that East Asians, more than Americans, explain events with reference to the context. The authors examined whether East Asians also attend to the context more than Americans do. In Study 1, Japanese and Americans watched animated vignettes of underwater scenes and reported the contents. In a subsequent recognition test, they were shown previously seen objects as well as new objects, either in their original setting or in novel settings, and then were asked to judge whether they had seen the objects. Study 2 replicated the recognition task using photographs of wildlife. The results showed that the Japanese (a) made more statements about contextual information and relationships than Americans did and (b) recognized previously seen objects more accurately when they saw them in their original settings rather than in the novel settings, whereas this manipulation had relatively little effect on Americans.
Sex differences favoring women have been found in face recognition tasks as well as in verbal episodic memory tasks. Women's higher face recognition performance was hypothesized to be related to either their higher verbal ability or to their superiority in recognizing female faces, rather than faces in general. Results showed that whereas there were no differences between men and women in the recognition of male faces, or in verbal ability, women performed at a higher level than men in the recognition of female faces. Verbal ability did not influence women's face recognition performance. Potential explanations for this pattern of data, such as sex differences in interest and prior knowledge, are discussed.
A new facial composites technique is demonstrated, in which photographs of the top and bottom halves of different familiar faces fuse to form unfamiliar faces when aligned with each other. The perception of a novel configuration in such composite stimuli is sufficiently convincing to interfere with identification of the constituent parts (experiment 1), but this effect disappears when stimuli are inverted (experiment 2). Difficulty in identifying the parts of upright composites is found even for stimuli made from parts of unfamiliar faces that have only ever been encountered as face fragments (experiment 3). An equivalent effect is found for composites made from internal and external facial features of well-known people (experiment 4). These findings demonstrate the importance of configurational information in face perception, and that configurations are only properly perceived in upright faces.
Competing approaches to the other-race effect (ORE) see its primary cause as either a lack of motivation to individuate social outgroup members, or a lack of perceptual experience with other-race faces. Here, we argue that the evidence supporting the social-motivational approach derives from a particular cultural setting: a high socio-economic status group (typically US Whites) looking at the faces of a lower status group (US Blacks) with whom observers typically have at least moderate perceptual experience. In contrast, we test motivation-to-individuate instructions across five studies covering an extremely wide range of perceptual experience, in a cultural setting of more equal socio-economic status, namely Asian and Caucasian participants (N=480) tested on Asian and Caucasian faces. We find no social-motivational component at all to the ORE, specifically: no reduction in the ORE with motivation instructions, including for novel images of the faces, and at all experience levels; no increase in correlation between own- and other-race face recognition, implying no increase in shared processes; and greater (not the predicted less) effort applied to distinguishing other-race faces than own-race faces under normal ("no instructions") conditions. Instead, the ORE was predicted by level of contact with the other-race. Our results reject both pure social-motivational theories and also the recent Categorization-Individuation model of Hugenberg, Young, Bernstein, and Sacco (2010). We propose a new dual-route approach to the ORE, in which there are two causes of the ORE-lack of motivation, and lack of experience-that contribute differently across varying world locations and cultural settings.
Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Recognition accuracy for faces of an individual's own race typically exceeds recognition accuracy for other-race faces. The categorization–individuation model (Hugenberg, Young, Bernstein, & Sacco, 2010) attributes this cross-race effect to motivation to encode distinctive features of own-race faces but category defining features for other-race faces. Two experiments using different stimuli tested hypotheses generated from this model with both Black and White participants. For White participants, instructions to individuate reduced the cross-race effect in both studies but did not eliminate it in Study 1. Black participants did not exhibit the cross-race effect in either study, but individuation instructions improved both their same-race and other-race sensitivity. The present quality of interracial contact moderated the relationship between instructions and other-race sensitivity for both Black and White participants in Study 1 but not in Study 2. Overall, results provide mixed support for this social categorization model. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
In this paper, we argue that our ability to recognize own-race faces can be treated as a form of perceptual expertise. Similar to object experts (e.g., birdwatchers), people differentiate own-race faces at the subordinate level of categorization. In contrast, like novices, we tend to classify other-race faces at the basic level of race. We demonstrate that, as a form of perceptual expertise, other-race face recognition can be systematically taught in the lab through subordinate-level training. When participants learn to quickly and accurately differentiate other-race faces at the subordinate level of the individual, the individuating training transfers to improved recognition of untrained other-race faces, produces changes in event-related brain components, and reduces implicit racial bias. Subsequent work has shown that other-race learning can be optimized by directing participants to the diagnostic features of a racial group. The benefits of other-race training are fairly long-lived and are evident even 2 weeks after training. Collectively, the training studies demonstrate the plasticity of other-race face recognition. Rather than a process that is fixed by early developmental events, other-race face recognition is malleable and dynamic, continually being reshaped by the perceptual experiences of the observer.
We evaluate claims that the other-race effect in face memory reflects stronger holistic coding of own-race than other-race faces. Considering evidence from a range of paradigms, including the inversion effect, part-whole effect, composite effect, and the scrambled/blurred task, we find considerable inconsistency, both between paradigms and between participant ethnicities. At the same time, however, studies that isolate configural and component feature processing consistently show better featural, as well as better configural, processing of own-race faces, for both Caucasian and Asian participants. These results raise the possibility that the key feature of own-race face processing is not stronger holistic processing per se, but rather more effective processing of all types of face information (featural as well as holistic).
People preferentially imitate others who are similar to them or have high social status. Such imitative biases are thought to have evolved because they increase the efficiency of cultural acquisition. Here we focused on distinguishing between self-similarity and social status as two candidate mechanisms underlying neural responses to a person's race during imitation. We used fMRI to measure neural responses when 20 African American (AA) and 20 European American (EA) young adults imitated AA, EA and Chinese American (CA) models and also passively observed their gestures and faces. We found that both AA and EA participants exhibited more activity in lateral frontoparietal and visual regions when imitating AAs compared with EAs or CAs. These results suggest that racial self-similarity is not likely to modulate neural responses to race during imitation, in contrast with findings from previous neuroimaging studies of face perception and action observation. Furthermore, AA and EA participants associated AAs with lower social status than EAs or CAs, suggesting that the social status associated with different racial groups may instead modulate neural activity during imitation of individuals from those groups. Taken together, these findings suggest that neural responses to race during imitation are driven by socially learned associations rather than self-similarity. This may reflect the adaptive role of imitation in social learning, where learning from higher status models can be more beneficial. This study provides neural evidence consistent with evolutionary theories of cultural acquisition. Hum Brain Mapp, 2013. © 2013 Wiley-Periodicals, Inc.
Two recognition memory experiments using photographs of black, white, and Japanese faces as stimuli were performed. In Experiment I, white Ss showed most accurate recognition memory for white faces, next most accurate recognition for black faces, and least accurate memory for Japanese faces. In Experiment II, both white and black Ss were tested with all three groups of faces. Again, it was found that whites did better on white faces than on black faces and did least well on Japanese faces. Blacks, in contrast, did best on black faces, next best on white faces, and also did least well on Japanese faces. This interaction of race of 5 with race of pictured face points to differential prior experience with various kinds of faces as the basis for these differences in memory performance. More generally, these findings support the applicability of the concept of schema to the processes by which faces are discriminated, processed, stored, and remembered.
Although holistic processing is thought to underlie normal face recognition ability, widely discrepant reports have recently emerged about this link in an individual differences context. Progress in this domain may have been impeded by the widespread use of subtraction scores, which lack validity due to their contamination with control condition variance. Regressing, rather than subtracting, a control condition from a condition of interest corrects this validity problem by statistically removing all control condition variance, thereby producing a specific measure that is uncorrelated with the control measure. Using 43 participants, we measured the relationships amongst the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) and two holistic processing measures, the composite task (CT) and the part-whole task (PW). For the holistic processing measures (CT and PW), we contrasted the results for regressing vs. subtracting the control conditions (parts for PW; misaligned congruency effect for CT) from the conditions of interest (wholes for PW; aligned congruency effect for CT). The regression-based holistic processing measures correlated with each other and with CFMT, supporting the idea of a unitary holistic processing mechanism that is involved in skilled face recognition. Subtraction scores yielded weaker correlations, especially for the PW. Together, the regression-based holistic processing measures predicted more than twice the amount of variance in CFMT (R(2)=.21) than their respective subtraction measures (R(2)=.10). We conclude that holistic processing is robustly linked to skilled face recognition. In addition to confirming this theoretically significant link, these results provide a case in point for the inappropriateness of subtraction scores when requiring a specific individual differences measure that removes the variance of a control task.
The effect of inversion on recognition of "own race" (high expertise) and "other race" (low expertise) faces was compared in 2 experiments involving 100 Chinese and European high school and university students. In Exp 1, there was a larger inversion effect in reaction time (RT) for recognition of own-race faces than other-race faces, for both European and Chinese Ss. In Exp 2, a larger own-race inversion effect was found for recognition accuracy, when test face pairs were randomly selected, but not when they were matched on isolated features. Results are largely consistent with the hypothesis of R. Diamond and S. Carey (see record
1986-21075-001) that expertise is associated with greater use of configural information in faces. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Research over the past two decades has demonstrated that individuals are better at the recognition and discrimination of own- versus other-race faces. Recent evidence, however, supports an own-race effect at the level of perceptual encoding in adults. The current study examines the perceptual basis of the own-race effect in secondary students from two racially segregated communities (White and South Asian). The contact hypothesis is investigated, as other-race experience may influence other-race face perception. Face stimuli were generated by morphing together South Asian and White faces along a linear continuum. In a same/different perceptual discrimination task participants judged whether face stimuli were physically identical to, or different from, the original faces. Results revealed a significant own-race effect for the White participants only, wherein they were better at discriminating White relative to South Asian faces. Other-race individuating experience was found to predict the own-race effect, indicating that other-race experience influences other-race face perceptual expertise. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Factor analyses of responses from white (N= 260) and black (N= 81) college students in two neighboring universities were utilized to develop contemporary measures of racial attitudes and of the degree of interracial contact experienced by blacks and by whites. Two sets of 112 attitudinal statements were utilized for the initial factor analyses, one set for black respondents and one for whites. About 60% of the items in the two sets were identical or the same except that the racial designations were reversed. Two 20-item racial attitude scales were derived from the factor analyses, one for blacks and one for whites. For students of each race, scores on the attitude measure showed a weak but significant relationship with a 16-item self-report scale of amount of interracial contact experienced, past and present. The relationship of these scales to earlier racial attitude measures (symbolic racism, modern racism, the MRAI, value rankings) were assessed. Second-order factor analyses suggested that the black students’ racial attitudes were more heterogeneous than were the white students’ racial attitudes. In general, black respondents tended to show more support than whites for programs designed to increase opportunities for, and recognition of, blacks. Black students also tended to endorse a greater degree of social distance between the races than white students did. The pattern of relationships between racial attitudes and sociopolitical issues differed for whites and blacks.
a b s t r a c t This research investigated the hypothesis that better recognition for own-race than other-race faces is a result of social categorization rather than perceptual expertise. More specifically, we explored how the salience of race or university group boundaries would affect recall of faces. Using a modified facial rec-ognition paradigm, on each trial eight Black and White faces were spatially organized either by race or university affiliation to induce categorization primarily based on one of these dimensions. When grouped by race, participants had superior recall for own-race faces and university affiliation had no effect. When grouped by university, participants had superior recall for own-university faces and race had no effect. Using identical stimuli across conditions, recall was superior for ingroup targets on the experimentally induced dimension of categorization, supportive of a social categorization based explanation of the cross-race effect. A soldier is court-martialed for failing to fire his weapon during a battle. He freely admits that he was ordered to fire when he saw the enemy. ''Then why didn't you?" someone asks. ''I never saw the enemy." he says, ''I just saw people." Shalom Aleichem (1894/1996, p. 70).
Failing to recognize someone or misidentifying someone can have important personal and social consequences. The perceiver may suffer feelings of embarrassment or stupidity. The target may feel insulted, stereotyped, or in extreme cases may be falsely identified as a criminal. If the perceiver and the target are of different ethnic groups, misidentification can increase intergroup hostility, stereotyping, and intergroup anxiety. Laboratory and field research demonstrates an own-race bias in recognition accuracy. People are better able to identify members of their own race than members of another race. The significance of own-race bias in the criminal justice system and intergroup contact situations is reviewed, and cognitive and motivational correlates of own-race bias are discussed. Four possible explanations for this differential recognition effect are presented. The explanation derived from intergroup contact theory—that differential recognition stems from limited experience with members of other groups—has received surprisingly weak research support thus far, Greater attention to assessing different types of contact may increase our understanding of the ways in which intergroup contact can affect intergroup perceptions.
Same-race (SR) faces are recognized better than other-race (OR) faces, and this other-race effect (ORE) is correlated with experience. SR faces are also processed more holistically than OR faces, suggesting one possible mechanism for poorer performance on OR faces. Studies of object expertise have shown that individuating experiences are necessary for holistic processing to develop; yet thus far no studies have investigated the role of quality of experience and the ORE for holistic processing. In the present study, we found a strong negative correlation between a self-report of individuating experience and the ORE in holistic processing in both Caucasian and Black participants, indicating that the more individuating experience a person has, the less ORE in holistic processing. This confirms the critical role of individuating experience in development of holistic processing for faces and suggests that quality of experience is a key determinant of the manner in which OR faces are processed.
We investigated the impact of ingroup/outgroup categorization on the encoding of same-race and other-race faces presented in inter-racial and intra-racial contexts (Experiments 1 and 2, respectively). White participants performed a same/different matching task on pairs of upright and inverted faces that were either same-race (White) or other-race (Black), and labeled as being from the same university or a different university. In Experiment 1, the same- and other-race faces were intermixed. For other-race faces, participants demonstrated greater configural processing following same- than other-university labeling. Same-race faces showed strong configural coding irrespective of the university labeling. In Experiment 2, faces were blocked by race. Participants demonstrated greater configural processing of same- than other-university faces, but now for both same- and other-race faces. These results demonstrate that other-race face processing is sensitive to non-racial ingroup/outgroup status regardless of racial context, but that the sensitivity of same-race face processing to the same cues depends on the racial context in which targets are encountered.
Recent studies have shown that same-race (SR) faces are processed more holistically than other-race (OR) faces, a difference that may underlie the greater difficulty at recognizing OR than SR faces (the "other-race effect"). This article provides original evidence suggesting that the holistic processing of faces may be sensitive to the observers' racial categorization of the face. In Experiment 1, Caucasian participants performed a face-composite task with Caucasian faces, Asian faces, and racially ambiguous morphed face stimuli. Identical morphed face stimuli were processed more holistically when categorized as SR than as OR faces. Experiment 2 further suggests that this finding was not underlain by strategic or training effects. Overall, these results support the view that one's categorization of a face as belonging to the same or another race plays a critical role in the holistic processing of this face.
Past research has found that mere in-group/out-group categorizations are sufficient to elicit biases in face memory. The current research yields novel evidence that mere social categorization is also sufficient to modulate processes underlying face perception, even for faces for which we have strong perceptual expertise: same-race (SR) faces. Using the composite face paradigm, we find that SR faces categorized as in-group members (i.e., fellow university students) are processed more holistically than are SR faces categorized as out-group members (i.e., students at another university). Hence, holding perceptual expertise with faces constant, categorizing an SR target as an out-group member debilitates the strong holistic processing typically observed for SR faces.
The other-race effect in face processing develops within the first year of life in Caucasian infants. It is currently unknown whether the developmental trajectory observed in Caucasian infants can be extended to other cultures. This is an important issue to investigate because recent findings from cross-cultural psychology have suggested that individuals from Eastern and Western backgrounds tend to perceive the world in fundamentally different ways. To this end, the current study investigated 3-, 6-, and 9-month-old Chinese infants' ability to discriminate faces within their own racial group and within two other racial groups (African and Caucasian). The 3-month-olds demonstrated recognition in all conditions, whereas the 6-month-olds recognized Chinese faces and displayed marginal recognition for Caucasian faces but did not recognize African faces. The 9-month-olds' recognition was limited to Chinese faces. This pattern of development is consistent with the perceptual narrowing hypothesis that our perceptual systems are shaped by experience to be optimally sensitive to stimuli most commonly encountered in one's unique cultural environment.
Other-race faces are generally recognized more poorly than own-race faces. There has been a long-standing interest in the extent to which differences in contact contribute to this other-race effect (ORE). Here, we examined the effect of contact on two distinct aspects of face memory, memory for configuration and for components, both of which are better for own-race than other-race faces. Configural and component memory were measured using recognition memory tests with intact study faces and blurred (isolates memory for configuration) and scrambled (isolates memory for components) test faces, respectively. Our participants were a large group of ethnically Chinese individuals who had resided in Australia for varying lengths of time, from a few weeks to 26 years. We found that time in a Western country significantly (negatively) predicted the size of the ORE for configural, but not component, memory. There was also a trend for earlier age of arrival to predict smaller OREs in configural, but not component, memory. These results suggest that memory for configural information in other-race faces improves with experience with such faces. However, as found for recognition memory generally, the contact effects were small, indicating that other factors must play a substantial role in cross-race differences in face memory.
Higher disease rates for blacks (or African Americans) compared to whites are pervasive and persistent over time, with the racial gap in mortality widening in recent years for multiple causes of death. Other racial/ethnic minority populations also have elevated disease risk for some health conditions. This paper considers the complex ways in which race and socioeconomic status (SES) combine to affect health. SES accounts for much of the observed racial disparities in health. Nonetheless, racial differences often persist even at "equivalent" levels of SES. Racism is an added burden for nondominant populations. Individual and institutional discrimination, along with the stigma of inferiority, can adversely affect health by restricting socioeconomic opportunities and mobility. Racism can also directly affect health in multiple ways. Residence in poor neighborhoods, racial bias in medical care, the stress of experiences of discrimination and the acceptance of the societal stigma of inferiority can have deleterious consequences for health.
A robust finding in the cross-cultural research is that people's memories for faces of their own race are superior to their memories for other-race faces. However, the mechanisms underlying the own-race effect have not been well defined. In this study, a holistic explanation was examined in which Caucasian and Asian participants were asked to recognize features of Caucasian and Asian faces presented in isolation and in the whole face. The main finding was that Caucasian participants recognized own-race faces more holistically than Asian faces whereas Asian participants demonstrated holistic recognition for both own-race and other-race faces. The differences in holistic recognition between Caucasian and Asian participants mirrored differences in their relative experience with own-race and other-race faces. These results suggest that the own-race effect may arise from the holistic recognition of faces from a highly familiar racial group.
Unlike most objects, faces are processed holistically: They are processed as a whole rather than as a collection of independent features. We examined the role of early visual experience in the development of this type of processing of faces by using the composite-face task, a measure of holistic processing, to test patients deprived of visual experience during infancy. Visually normal control subjects showed the expected composite-face effect: They had difficulty perceiving that the top halves of two faces were the same when the top halves were aligned with different bottom halves. Performance improved when holistic processing was disrupted by misaligning the top and bottom halves. Deprived patients, in contrast, showed no evidence of holistic processing, and in fact performed significantly better than control subjects when top and bottom halves were aligned. These findings suggest that early visual experience is necessary to set up or maintain the neural substrate that leads to holistic processing of faces.
A hallmark of perceptual expertise is that experts classify objects at a more specific, subordinate level of abstraction than novices. To what extent does subordinate-level learning contribute to the transfer of perceptual expertise to novel exemplars and novel categories? In this study, participants learned to classify 10 varieties of wading birds and 10 varieties of owls at either the subordinate, species (e.g., "great blue crown heron,"eastern screech owl") or the family ("wading bird,"owl") level of abstraction. During training, the amount of visual exposure was equated such that participants received an equal number of learning trials for wading birds and owls. Pre- and posttraining performance was measured in a same/different discrimination task in which participants judged whether pairs of bird stimuli belonged to the same or different species. Participants trained in species-level discrimination demonstrated greater transfer to novel exemplars and novel species categories than participants trained in family-level discrimination. These findings suggest that perceptual categorization, not perceptual exposure per se, is important for the development and generalization of visual expertise.
In the debate between expertise and domain-specific explanations of "special" processing for faces, a common belief is that behavioural studies support the expertise hypothesis. The present article refutes this view, via a combination of new data and review. We tested dog experts with confirmed good individuation of exemplars of their breed-of-expertise. In all experiments, standard results were confirmed for faces. However, dog experts showed no face-like processing for dogs on three behavioural tasks (inversion; the composite paradigm; and sensitivity to contrast reversal). The lack of holistic/configural processing, indicated in the first two of these tests, is shown by review to be consistent rather than inconsistent with previous studies of objects-of-expertise.
Recognizing individual faces outside one's race poses difficulty, a phenomenon known as the other-race effect. Most researchers agree that this effect results from differential experience with same-race (SR) and other-race (OR) faces. However, the specific processes that develop with visual experience and underlie the other-race effect remain to be clarified. We tested whether the integration of facial features into a whole representation-holistic processing-was larger for SR than OR faces in Caucasians and Asians without life experience with OR faces. For both classes of participants, recognition of the upper half of a composite-face stimulus was more disrupted by the bottom half (the composite-face effect) for SR than OR faces, demonstrating that SR faces are processed more holistically than OR faces. This differential holistic processing for faces of different races, probably a by-product of visual experience, may be a critical factor in the other-race effect.
Configural and holistic coding are hallmarks of face perception. Although recent studies have shown that own-race faces are coded more holistically than other-race faces, the evidence for better configural coding of own-race faces is equivocal. We directly measured configural and component coding of own- and other-race male faces in Caucasian and Chinese participants. We manipulated individual features (components) or their spatial relations (configurations) using a novel morphing method to vary difficulty parametrically and tested sensitivity to these changes in a sequential matching task. Both configural and component coding were better for upright own-race than for upright other-race faces. Inversion impaired detection of configural changes more than it did detection of component changes, but also impaired performance more for easier discriminations, independent of type of change. These results challenge explanations of face expertise that rely solely on configural and holistic processing, and also call into question the widespread interpretation of large inversion decrements as diagnostic of configural coding.
The own-race advantage in face recognition has been hypothesized as being due to a superiority in the processing of configural information for own-race faces. Here we examined the contributions of both configural and component processing to the own-race advantage. We recruited 48 Caucasian participants in Australia and 48 Chinese participants in Hong Kong, and had them study Caucasian and Chinese faces. After study, they were shown old faces (along with distractors) that were either blurred (isolating configural processing), in which high spatial frequencies were removed from the intact faces, or scrambled (isolating component processing), in which the locations of all face components were rearranged. Participants performed better on the memory test for own-race faces in both the blurred (configural) and scrambled (component) conditions, showing an own-race advantage for both configural and component processing. These results suggest that the own-race advantage in face recognition is due to a general facilitation in different forms of face processing.
The other-race effect (ORE) in face recognition describes a well-established finding of better recognition for own-race than other-race faces. Although widely thought to reflect differences in contact between own- and other-race faces, little is known about how different contact levels relate to changes in processing of those faces. This study investigated how contact affects the size of the ORE and the use of expert configural face-coding mechanisms. Using inversion decrements as an index of configural coding, we predicted that increased self-reported contact would be associated with greater use of configural-coding mechanisms. Chinese and Caucasian participants varying in contact with other-race faces were recruited. The Chinese participants also varied in their length of residence in a Western country. Results showed that higher levels of contact were associated with a reduction in the ORE in both face recognition and configural coding. Importantly, smaller cross-race differences in configural coding were also associated with a smaller ORE in face recognition.