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... Subsequently, during the recognition trials, the target faces are presented without any variation in the image (learning stage) with different lighting and viewpoint (novel stage) and with the addition of visual noise (novel-with-noise stage). The CFMT has been widely used to investigate different aspects of face recognition, including its heritability (Wilmer et al., 2010), development (Germine et al., 2011), relationship with holistic processing (DeGutis et al., 2013) and other group effects (Childs et al., 2021;Estudillo et al., 2020;McKone et al., 2012;Wan et al., 2017). Importantly, because it has high reliability (Cronbach's alpha (α) ≈ .90), the CFMT is also used to aid the diagnosis of prosopagnosia (e.g., Bowles et al., 2009;Duchaine & Nakayama, 2006;Estudillo et al., 2020;McKone et al., 2017). ...
... The CFMT has been widely used to investigate different aspects of face recognition, including its heritability (Wilmer et al., 2010), development (Germine et al., 2011), relationship with holistic processing (DeGutis et al., 2013) and other group effects (Childs et al., 2021;Estudillo et al., 2020;McKone et al., 2012;Wan et al., 2017). Importantly, because it has high reliability (Cronbach's alpha (α) ≈ .90), the CFMT is also used to aid the diagnosis of prosopagnosia (e.g., Bowles et al., 2009;Duchaine & Nakayama, 2006;Estudillo et al., 2020;McKone et al., 2017). Specifically, individuals scoring two standard deviations below the mean CFMT performance are considered as possible prosopagnosia cases (Duchaine & Nakayama, 2006). ...
... People tend to be better recognizing faces from their ownrace compared to other-race faces, the so-called other-race effect (Meissner & Brigham, 2001). Both the CFMT-original and the CFMT-Aus consist of Caucasian face stimuli and have shown strong other-race effects (see e.g., Estudillo et al., 2020;McKone et al., 2012;Wan et al., 2017), limiting their use to Caucasian populations. The CFMT-Chinese (McKone et al., 2012) was introduced to study individual differences in face recognition and aid the diagnosis of prosopagnosia in Asian populations. ...
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The Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) is one of the most important measures of individual differences in face recognition and for the diagnosis of prosopagnosia. Having two different CFMT versions using a different set of faces seems to improve the reliability of the evaluation. However, at the present time, there is only one Asian version of the test. In this study, we present the Cambridge Face Memory Test - Chinese Malaysian (CFMT-MY), a novel Asian CFMT using Chinese Malaysian faces. In Experiment 1, Chinese Malaysian participants (N = 134) completed two versions of the Asian CFMT and one object recognition test. The CFMT-MY showed a normal distribution, high internal reliability, high consistency and presented convergent and divergent validity. Additionally, in contrast to the original Asian CFMT, the CFMT-MY showed an increasing level of difficulties across stages. In Experiment 2, Caucasian participants (N = 135) completed the two versions of the Asian CFMT and the original Caucasian CFMT. Results showed that the CFMT-MY exhibited the other-race effect. Overall, the CFMT-MY seems to be suitable for the diagnosis of face recognition difficulties and could be used as a measure of face recognition ability by researchers who wish to examine face-related research questions such as individual differences or the other-race effect.
... However, an individual differences analysis showed that around 8% of these observers performed so extremely poor at recognizing other-race faces that they could be considered to suffer a specific type of face-blindness for other race faces. The authors concluded that the lack of contact with other-race faces is the main cause of the ORE (Wan et al., 2017; see also Estudillo et al., 2020). ...
... non-experts in a specific field) present very poor insights about their actual performance (Dunning et al., 2003;Fakcharoenphol et al., 2015). This effect which, has been found in different domains, including humour, logic, grammar knowledge and face perception (Dunning et al., 2003;Pennycook et al., 2017;Zhou and Jenkins, 2020), makes a clear prediction about our study: as people are generally experts recognizing own-race faces, but not other-race faces (Estudillo et al., 2020;Tanaka et al., 2013), people would have more accurate insights into their recognition abilities for own-race faces compared to other-race faces. Thus, this study also allows us to test the Dunning-Kruger effect from a different domain: the recognition of own-and other-races faces. ...
... These values are in agreement with previous research (e.g. Bowles et al., 2009;Estudillo et al., 2020). ...
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Purpose The other-race effect shows that people are better recognizing faces from their own-race compared to other-race faces. This effect can have dramatic consequences in applied scenarios whereby face identification is paramount, such as eyewitness identification. This paper aims to investigate whether observers have insights into their ability to recognize other-race faces. Design/methodology/approach Chinese ethnic observers performed objective measures of own- and other-race face recognition – the Cambridge Face Memory Test Chinese and the Cambridge Face Memory Test original; the PI20 – a 20-items self-reported measured of general face recognition abilities; and the ORE20 – a new developed 20-items self-reported measure of other-race face recognition. Findings Recognition of own-race faces was better compared to other-race faces. This effect was also evident at a phenomenological level, as observers reported to be worse recognizing other-race faces compared to own-race faces. Additionally, although a moderate correlation was found between own-race face recognition abilities and the PI20, individual differences in the recognition of other-race faces was only poorly associated with observers’ scores in the ORE20. Research limitations/implications These results suggest that observers’ insights to recognize faces are more consistent and reliable for own-race faces. Practical implications Self-reported measures of other-race recognition could produce misleading results. Thus, when evaluating eyewitness’ accuracy identifying other-race faces, objective measures should be used. Originality/value In contrast to own race recognition, people have very limited insights into their recognition abilities for other race faces.
... On the whole our results were consistent with the experience-limited account of face recognition expertise. For both mono exposure groups we replicated the ORE using the old/new task (Experiment 1) (e.g., Gabrieli et al., 2001;Wright et al., 2003), as well as the CFMT (Experiment 2) (e.g., Estudillo et al., 2020;Horry et al., 2015;Wan et al., 2015;Zhao et al., 2014b;Zhou et al., 2019). Hence, our tasks and manipulations were able to produce the classical ORE effect, as expected. ...
... These results are in line with findings from two recent studies, which focused on participants with different perceptual experience backgrounds using the CFMT and the CFMT-Chinese. Estudillo et al. (2020) examined Malaysian observers from three different ethnic groups (Malay Malaysian, Indian Malaysian, and Chinese Malaysian) and compared their accuracies between the two versions of the CFMT. In this study faces in the CFMT were nonnative to participants from all three groups, however faces in the CFMT-Chinese were only native to the Chinese Malaysian group. ...
... Our results add to these findings and provide a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of experience on face expertise. Compared to Estudillo et al. (2020), we controlled for the participants' exposure histories by collecting a self-report social exposure survey and used stringent criteria for inclusion in the three participant groups. Compared to Zhou et al. (2019) our analysis focused on differences among the three participant groups' accuracies within each version of the CFMT rather than comparing each group's results across the two versions. ...
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The contact hypothesis posits that a racially-homogenous face-diet, in part, accounts for the other- race effect (ORE)—a difficulty in recognizing other-race faces. This account does not specify whether racial homogeneity of face exposure is necessary to achieving native-level expertise for own-race faces. Here we propose three new models that complement and extend the contact hypothesis: the experience-limited, the capacity-limited, and the enhancement hypotheses, each with differing predictions in the context of abundant exposure to multiple race categories. The experience-limited account proposes that greater experience always leads to better performance. The alternative capacity-limited account allows for detrimental effects of racially- heterogeneous exposure. The enhancement account predicts heterogeneity of exposure confers added benefits. In two experiments we examined face recognition in a group with sustained lifetime exposure to Caucasian and East Asian faces (dual exposure) in comparison to two mono exposure groups. Dual-exposure individuals showed native-like performance on the face recognition tasks for both Caucasian and East Asian faces. We found no evidence of a detrimental or an enhancing effect of racially-heterogeneous face exposure. Overall, our results support the experience-limited account of face expertise. We conclude that a racially homogeneous face-diet is not necessary to achieve native-level face expertise.
... Considering its unique multiracial characteristics, Malaysia provides an interesting environment for face recognition research and a rich field area for studying ORB in the context of high interracial contact among the different race groups. Three recent studies have highlighted the unique cultural and racial diversity in Malaysia and how this can have a direct influence on face processing ability of own-and other-race faces in children (Su et al., 2017) and young adults (Tan et al., 2012;Estudillo et al., 2019). Su et al. (2017) reported that Malaysian-Chinese children tested with four races of faces (Chinese, Malay, African, and Caucasian) showed reduced recognition of African faces, but similar recognition accuracy for Chinese, Malay, and Caucasian faces. ...
... In another study, Tan et al. (2012) reported that Malaysian-Chinese young adults performed equally well at recognizing East Asian and Western-Caucasian faces, but less well at recognizing African faces, which are not typically encountered in Malaysia. In contrast, Estudillo et al. (2019) found that Malaysians (Chinese, Malay, Indian) recognized Chinese faces equally well compared to the normative data derived from Mainland-Chinese population (Mckone et al., 2017) but showed a clear ORB for Caucasian faces. In the latter two studies, however, only Malaysian samples were involved, and conclusions were drawn without including Western-Caucasians as a comparison group. ...
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The own-race bias (ORB) is a reliable phenomenon across cultural and racial groups where unfamiliar faces from other races are usually remembered more poorly than own-race faces (Meissner and Brigham, 2001). By adopting a yes–no recognition paradigm, we found that ORB was pronounced across race groups (Malaysian–Malay, Malaysian–Chinese, Malaysian–Indian, and Western–Caucasian) when faces were presented with only internal features (Experiment 1), implying that growing up in a profoundly multiracial society does not necessarily eliminate ORB. Using a procedure identical to Experiment 1, we observed a significantly greater increment in recognition performance for other-race faces than for own-race faces when the external features (e.g. facial contour and hairline) were presented along with the internal features (Experiment 2)—this abolished ORB. Contrary to assumptions based on the contact hypothesis, participants’ self-reported amount of interracial contact on a social contact questionnaire did not significantly predict the magnitude of ORB. Overall, our findings suggest that the level of exposure to other-race faces accounts for only a small part of ORB. In addition, the present results also support the notion that different neural mechanisms may be involved in processing own- and other-race faces, with internal features of own-race faces being processed more effectively, whereas external features dominate representations of other-race faces.
... Considering its unique multiracial characteristics, Malaysia provides an interesting environment for face recognition research and a rich field area for studying ORB in the context of high interracial contact among the different race groups. Three recent studies have highlighted the unique cultural and racial diversity in Malaysia and how this can have a direct influence on face processing ability of own-and other-race faces in children (Su et al., 2017) and young adults (Tan et al., 2012;Estudillo et al., 2019). Su et al. (2017) reported that Malaysian-Chinese children tested with four races of faces (Chinese, Malay, African, and Caucasian) showed reduced recognition of African faces, but similar recognition accuracy for Chinese, Malay, and Caucasian faces. ...
... In another study, Tan et al. (2012) reported that Malaysian-Chinese young adults performed equally well at recognizing East Asian and Western-Caucasian faces, but less well at recognizing African faces, which are not typically encountered in Malaysia. In contrast, Estudillo et al. (2019) found that Malaysians (Chinese, Malay, Indian) recognized Chinese faces equally well compared to the normative data derived from Mainland-Chinese population (Mckone et al., 2017) but showed a clear ORB for Caucasian faces. In the latter two studies, however, only Malaysian samples were involved, and conclusions were drawn without including Western-Caucasians as a comparison group. ...
Article
Full-text available
The own-race bias (ORB) is a reliable phenomenon across cultural and racial groups where unfamiliar faces from other races are usually remembered more poorly than own-race faces (Meissner and Brigham, 2001). By adopting a yes–no recognition paradigm, we found that ORB was pronounced across race groups (Malaysian–Malay, Malaysian–Chinese, Malaysian–Indian, and Western–Caucasian) when faces were presented with only internal features (Experiment 1), implying that growing up in a profoundly multiracial society does not necessarily eliminate ORB. Using a procedure identical to Experiment 1, we observed a significantly greater increment in recognition performance for other-race faces than for own-race faces when the external features (e.g. facial contour and hairline) were presented along with the internal features (Experiment 2)—this abolished ORB. Contrary to assumptions based on the contact hypothesis, participants’ self-reported amount of interracial contact on a social contact questionnaire did not significantly predict the magnitude of ORB. Overall, our findings suggest that the level of exposure to other-race faces accounts for only a small part of ORB. In addition, the present results also support the notion that different neural mechanisms may be involved in processing own- and other-race faces, with internal features of own-race faces being processed more effectively, whereas external features dominate representations of other-race faces.
... Considering its unique multiracial characteristics, Malaysia provides an interesting environment for face recognition research and a rich field area for studying ORB in the context of high interracial contact among the different race groups. Three recent studies have highlighted the unique cultural and racial diversity in Malaysia and how this can have a direct influence on face processing ability of own-and other-race faces in children (Su et al., 2017) and young adults (Tan et al., 2012;Estudillo et al., 2019). Su et al. (2017) reported that Malaysian-Chinese children tested with four races of faces (Chinese, Malay, African, and Caucasian) showed reduced recognition of African faces, but similar recognition accuracy for Chinese, Malay, and Caucasian faces. ...
... In another study, Tan et al. (2012) reported that Malaysian-Chinese young adults performed equally well at recognizing East Asian and Western-Caucasian faces, but less well at recognizing African faces, which are not typically encountered in Malaysia. In contrast, Estudillo et al. (2019) found that Malaysians (Chinese, Malay, Indian) recognized Chinese faces equally well compared to the normative data derived from Mainland-Chinese population (Mckone et al., 2017) but showed a clear ORB for Caucasian faces. In the latter two studies, however, only Malaysian samples were involved, and conclusions were drawn without including Western-Caucasians as a comparison group. ...
... One benefit of using a symptom-based approach to diagnosing DP is that it may not be susceptible to the biases that face recognition tests suffer from. For example, women are typically better at identifying still images of faces in cognitive tests than men (Herlitz & Lovén, 2013;Wright & Sladden, 2003), and people are typically better at recognizing faces of their own ethnicity (Bate, Bennetts, Hasshim et al., 2019;Burns, Tree et al., 2019;Childs et al., 2021;Estudillo et al., 2020;Meissner & Brigham, 2001), and ages (Rhodes & Anastasi, 2012). Given that standardized cognitive tests (e.g., CFMT, CFPT) almost always contain images of young adults, they will underestimate face processing abilities of participants furthest away from these age groups (Burns, 2023). ...
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The Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) recommends diagnosing neurocognitive disorders (i.e., cognitive impairment) when a patient scores beyond -1 SD below neurotypical norms on two tests. I review how this approach will fail due to cognitive tests’ power limitations, validity issues, imperfect reliabilities, and biases, before summarising their resulting negative consequences. As a proof of concept, I use developmental prosopagnosia, a condition characterised by difficulties recognising faces, to show the DSM-5 only diagnoses 62-70% (n1 = 61, n2 = 165) versus 100% (n1 = 61) through symptoms alone. Pooling the DSM-5 missed cases confirmed the presence of group-level impairments on objective tests, which were further evidenced through meta-analyses, thus validating their highly atypical symptoms. These findings support a paradigm shift towards bespoke diagnostic approaches for distinct cognitive impairments, including a symptom-based method when validated effective. I reject dogmatic adherence to the DSM-5 approach to neurocognitive disorders, and underscore the importance of a data driven, transdiagnostic approach to understanding patients’ subjective cognitive impairments. This will ultimately benefit patients, their families, clinicians, and scientific progress.
... Although fossil fuels currently maintain a price advantage over renewables, governments can play a pivotal role in making renewables economically viable by investing in the sector and scaling up circular energy practices. India's progress in renewable energy production, combined with its potential in sustainable energy storage and the burgeoning battery recycling and reuse industry, places it in a prime position to steer the world towards a future with net-zero carbon emissions, setting an example for others to follow [112] . ...
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Energy is both a fundamental necessity and a driving force behind human activities. Throughout history, energy consumption has steadily risen, evolving from basic needs like food and fire for early humans to complex industrial and technological requirements today. Transitioning to a sustainable energy system requires a policy framework that empowers developing nations to promote green industries, diversify their sectors, and accelerate growth while addressing climate change and related challenges. In response to the urgent need for a global transition towards sustainable energy sources, this research explores the pivotal roles of technology, research, and policy in advancing renewable energy solutions. Motivated by the growing environmental challenges associated with conventional energy sources, the primary goal of this study is to shed light on the multifaceted strategies that facilitate the widespread adoption of renewable energy and contribute to mitigating climate change. Through an extensive analysis of renewable energy technologies, research contributions, and policy frameworks, this research uncovers critical insights. Our findings reveal how technological innovations have revolutionized renewable energy sources, making them more efficient, affordable, and scalable. Furthermore, research efforts have identified new opportunities and addressed technical challenges, while also assessing the environmental and societal impacts of renewable energy adoption. Crucially, this study underscores the indispensable role of policy in driving renewable energy transitions. Governments worldwide play a pivotal role in incentivizing renewable energy development through financial incentives, regulatory mandates, and research and development support. Moreover, these policies aim to promote energy efficiency, conservation, and equitable access to sustainable solutions. The results of this research emphasize that the transition to renewable energy is not only a viable solution to climate change but also an opportunity to create green jobs, enhance energy security, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The potential for a sustainable future powered by renewable energy is within reach, and this study serves as a guidepost for realizing this transformative vision.
... Difficulties in face identification are even more prominent with other-race faces (Meissner & Brigham, 2001). The other-race effect (ORE) in face recognition shows that humans tend to be better at recognizing own-race faces compared to other-race faces (Estudillo et al., 2020;Malpass & Kravitz, 1969;Wong et al., 2021). The ORE has been found across different tasks and countries, and even when the morphological differences across the faces are minor (McKone et al., 2011), pointing to a very robust phenomenon. ...
Article
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Successful face recognition is important for social interactions and public security. Although some preliminary evidence suggests that anodal and cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) might modulate own- and other-race face identification, respectively, the findings are largely inconsistent. Hence, we examined the effect of both anodal and cathodal tDCS on the recognition of own- and other-race faces. Ninety participants first completed own- and other-race Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) as baseline measurements. Next, they received either anodal tDCS, cathodal tDCS or sham stimulation and finally they completed alternative versions of the own- and other-race CFMT. No difference in performance, in terms of accuracy and reaction time, for own- and other-race face recognition between anodal tDCS, cathodal tDCS and sham stimulation was found. Our findings cast doubt upon the efficacy of tDCS to modulate performance in face identification tasks.
... The maximum achievable score (e.g., sum of correct responses) for the CFMT-Chi is 72, in which our current sample had a mean score of 57.98 (SD = 8.93) in Experiment 1 and 58.28 (SD = 8.53) in Experiment 2. As revealed by a two-tailed independent-samples t-test, the mean CFMT-Chi scores for both experiments were not significantly different from each other, t(171) = − 0.23, p = 0.820, η p 2 = − 0.035. This shows that our participants' FRA are largely similar between the two experiments, as well as with those of previous studies [35][36][37][38][39] . Mean accuracy scores of the RMT were calculated separately for each of the two viewing conditions: "whole" and "aperture" (Fig. 2). ...
Article
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While it is generally accepted that holistic processing facilitates face recognition, recent studies suggest that poor recognition might also arise from imprecise perception of local features in the face. This study aimed to examine to what extent holistic and featural processing relates to individual differences in face recognition ability (FRA), during face learning (Experiment 1) and face recognition (Experiment 2). Participants performed two tasks: (1) The “Cambridge Face Memory Test-Chinese” which measured participants’ FRAs, and (2) an “old/new recognition memory test” encompassing whole faces (preserving holistic and featural processing) and faces revealed through a dynamic aperture (impairing holistic processing but preserving featural processing). Our results showed that participants recognised faces more accurately in conditions when holistic information was preserved, than when it is impaired. We also show that the better use of holistic processing during face learning and face recognition was associated with better FRAs. However, enhanced featural processing during recognition, but not during learning, was related to better FRAs. Together, our findings demonstrate that good face recognition depends on distinct roles played by holistic and featural processing at different stages of face recognition.
... Sixty Malaysian Chinese (38 females) participants were recruited. To address the potential influence of ORE in face recognition (Estudillo, 2021;Estudillo et al., 2020;Hayward et al., 2008;Wong et al., 2020), only Malaysian Chinese participants were recruited as the stimuli presented in the experiment were created using only Chinese faces. Past work has also indicated that hormone levels which fluctuate among females due to the menstrual cycle could affect cortical excitability (Smith et al., 2002). ...
Article
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The functional role of the occipital face area (OFA) and the fusiform face area (FFA) in face recognition is inconclusive to date. While some research has shown that the OFA and FFA are involved in early (i.e., featural processing) and late (i.e., holistic processing) stages of face recognition respectively, other research suggests that both regions are involved in both early and late stages of face recognition. Thus, the current study aims to further examine the role of the OFA and the FFA using multifocal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). In Experiment 1, we used computer-generated faces. Thirty-five participants completed whole face and facial features (i.e., eyes, nose, mouth) recognition tasks after OFA and FFA stimulation in a within-subject design. No difference was found in recognition performance after either OFA or FFA stimulation. In Experiment 2 with 60 participants, we used real faces, provided stimulation following a between-subjects design and included a sham control group. Results showed that FFA stimulation led to enhanced efficiency of facial features recognition. Additionally, no effect of OFA stimulation was found for either facial feature or whole face recognition. These results suggest the involvement of FFA in the recognition of facial features.
... As our stimuli comprised Chinese ethnic faces, it can be argued that our results could potentially reflect individual differences in the recognition of other-race faces (Wan et al., 2017). However, recent research has shown that, due to the extensive experience with Chinese ethnic faces, Malaysian-Malays and Malaysian-Indian, do not show an other-race effect for Chinese faces (Estudillo et al., 2020, but see Wong, Stephen, & Keeble, 2020. More importantly, our main results remain unaffected not only when Malaysian-Indians and Malaysian-Malays are excluded from the analysis, but also when the analysis only include these two groups (see Supplementary results). ...
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Face identification is useful for social interactions and its impairment can lead to severe social and mental problems. This ability is also remarkably important in applied settings, including eyewitness identification and ID verification. Several studies have demonstrated the potential of Transcranial Random Noise Stimulation (tRNS) to enhance different cognitive skills. However, research has produced inconclusive results about the effectiveness of tRNS to improve face identification. The present study aims to further explore the effect of tRNS on face identification using an unfamiliar face matching task. Observers firstly received either high-frequency bilateral tRNS or sham stimulation for 20 min. The stimulation targeted occipitotemporal areas, which have been previously involved in face processing. In a subsequent stage, observers were asked to perform an unfamiliar face matching task consisting of unaltered and pixelated face pictures. Compared to the sham stimulation group, the high-frequency tRNS group showed better unfamiliar face matching performance with both unaltered and pixelated faces. Our results show that a single high-frequency tRNS session might suffice to improve face identification abilities. These results have important consequences for the treatment of face recognition disorders, and potential applications in those scenarios whereby the identification of faces is primordial.
... Research with children and adolescents reflects that caregiver and peer biases in face recognition abilities will differentially influence the way individuals from these developmental groups recognize the faces in these tasks (e.g., Picci & Scherf, 2016). Also, the ethnic and racial identification of participants may influence the way individuals recognize faces in these tasks (McKone et al., , 2017, which is associated with real-world social experiences (Estudillo et al., 2020;McKone et al., 2021). ...
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The Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) is one of the most used assessments of face recognition abilities in the science of face processing. The original task, using White male faces, has been empirically evaluated for psychometric properties (Duchaine & Nakayama, 2006), while the longer and more difficult version (CFMT+; Russell et al., 2009) has not. Critically, no version exists using female faces. Here, we present the Female Cambridge Face Memory Test - Long Form (F-CFMT+) and evaluate the psychometric properties of this task in comparison to the Male Cambridge Face Memory Test - Long Form (M-CFMT+). We tested typically developing emerging adults (18 to 25 years old) in both Cambridge face recognition tasks, an old-new face recognition task, and a car recognition task. Results indicate that the F-CFMT+ is a valid, internally consistent measure of unfamiliar face recognition that can be used alone or in tandem with the M-CFMT+ to assess recognition abilities for young adult White faces. When used together, performance on the F-CFMT+ and M-CFMT+ can be directly compared, adding to the ability to understand face recognition abilities for different kinds of faces. The two tasks have high convergent validity and relatively good divergent validity with car recognition in the same task paradigm. The F-CFMT+ will be useful to researchers interested in evaluating a broad range of questions about face recognition abilities in both typically developing individuals and those with atypical social information processing abilities.
... Although the ORE has been frequently reported, the magnitude of the ORE has been consistently reduced in the past decades, potentially due to the increase in interracial contact (Meissner & Brigham, 2001). There has been increasing evidence of a lack of the ORE in individuals who have relatively extensive experience with individuals of another race, such as Asian participants in Europe viewing Caucasian faces, or Malaysian Indians or Malays viewing Chinese faces (de Heering et al., 2010;Estudillo et al., 2019;Fioravanti-Bastos et al., 2014;Walker & Hewstone, 2006;Wright et al., 2003). Moreover, a reverse ORE has also been reported for Caucasian vs. Asian faces in Western-raised Asian observers (Sangrigoli et al., 2005). ...
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Previous research has established a possible link between recognition performance, individuation experience, and implicit racial bias of other-race faces. However, it remains unclear how implicit racial bias might influence other-race face processing in observers with relatively extensive experience with the other race. Here we examined how recognition of other-race faces might be modulated by observers’ implicit racial bias, in addition to the effects of experience and face recognition ability. Caucasian participants in a culturally diverse city completed a memory task for Asian and Caucasian faces, an implicit association test, a questionnaire assessing experience with Asians and Caucasians, and a face recognition ability test. As expected, recognition performance for Asian faces was positively predicted by increased face recognition ability, and experience with Asians. More importantly, it was also negatively predicted by increased positive bias towards Asians, which was modulated by an interaction between face recognition ability and implicit bias, with the effect of implicit bias observed predominantly in observers with high face recognition ability. Moreover, the positions of the first two fixations when participants learned the other-race faces were affected by different factors, with the first fixation modulated by the effect of experience and the second fixation modulated by the interaction between implicit bias and face recognition ability. Taken together, these findings suggest the complexity in understanding the perceptual and socio-cognitive influences on the other-race effect, and that observers with high face recognition ability may more likely evaluate racial features involuntarily when recognizing other-race faces.
... Previous studies have shown that specific training during infancy (Heron-Delaney et al., 2011;Spangler et al., 2013) or even during adulthood (Goldstein & Chance, 1985;Lebrecht et al., 2009) could undo perceptual narrowing. Recent work conducted in Malaysia, a highly multiracial environment, points out that growing up in such environment reduces and can even delete the other-race effect (Estudillo et al., 2019;Tham et al., 2017Tham et al., , 2018. Last, but not least, specific language experience seems to also reduce perceptual narrowing and influence face processing. ...
Article
Between 6 and 9 months, while infant’s ability to discriminate faces within their own racial group is maintained, discrimination of faces within other-race groups declines to a point where 9-month-old infants fail to discriminate other-race faces. Such face perception narrowing can be overcome in various ways at 9 or 12 months of age, such as presenting faces with emotional expressions. Can language itself modulate face narrowing? Many adult studies suggest that language has an impact on the recognition of individuals. For example, adults remember faces previously paired with their native language more accurately than faces paired with a non-native language. We have previously found that from 9 months of age, own-race faces associated with the native language can be learned and recognized whereas own-race faces associated with a non-native language cannot. Based on the language familiarity effect, we hypothesized that the native language could restore recognition of other-race faces after perceptual narrowing has happened. We tested 9- and 12-month-old Caucasian infants. During a familiarization phase, infants were shown still photographs of an Asian face while audio was played either in the native or in the non-native language. Immediately after the familiarization, the familiar face and a novel one were displayed side-by-side for the recognition test. We compared the proportional looking time to the new face to the chance level. Both 9- and 12-month-old infants exhibited recognition memory for the other-race face when familiarized with non-native speech, but not with their native speech. Native language did not facilitate recognition of other-race faces after 9 months of age but a non-native language did, suggesting that 9- and 12-month-olds already have expectations about which language an individual should talk (or at least not talk). Our results confirm the strong links between face and speech processing during infancy.
... Thirdly, the face stimuli used in our two studies were Caucasian faces. As people tend to be worse recognizing other-ethnicity faces, the so-called other ethnicity-effect (Chiroro & Valentine, 1995;Estudillo et al., 2020;Malpass & Kravitz, 1969;Valentine et al., 2016;Wong et al., 2020), the inclusion of non-Caucasian observers in our sample (87 out of 204 in Experiment 2) could have affected our results. However, supplementary analysis showed that both Caucasian and non-Caucasian observers showed a clear full-view advantage (i.e., better performance in the full-view compared to the mask condition) and the magnitude of this effect was positively associated with the performance in the full-view condition (for details, see Supplementary Results). ...
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In the forensic face matching task, observers are presented with two unfamiliar faces and must determine whether they depict the same identity. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, some governmental authorities require the use of face masks in public spaces. However, recent research has shown that face masks impair face identification. The present study explores the effect of face masks on forensic face matching using an individual differences approach. Compared to a full-view condition, performance decreased when a face mask was superimposed on one face (Experiment 1) and both faces (Experiment 2) of a pair. Although a positive correlation between the full-view and the mask conditions was found, high proficiency in the full-view condition did not always generalize to the mask condition. Additionally, the mask generally has a more negative impact on those participants with better performance in the full-view condition. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
... In general (although see Harvey, 2014;MacLin et al., 2004;Ng & Lindsay, 1994); studies investigating the role of contact (both in geographical and self-report) in face recognition show that as contact increases the magnitude of the OEE can diminish (see Table 1 for summarized findings). However, it is particularly noteworthy that although contact can diminish the magnitude of the OEE, it often does not eliminate this effect completely (De Heering et al., 2010; although see Estudillo et al., 2020). ...
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Individuals are better at recognizing faces from their own ethnic group compared with other ethnicity faces—the other-ethnicity effect (OEE). This finding is said to reflect differences in experience and familiarity to faces from other ethnicities relative to faces corresponding with the viewers’ ethnicity. However, own-ethnicity face recognition performance ranges considerably within a population, from very poor to extremely good. In addition, within-population recognition performance on other-ethnicity faces can also vary considerably with some individuals being classed as “other ethnicity face blind” (Wan et al., 2017). Despite evidence for considerable variation in performance within population for faces of both types, it is currently unclear whether the magnitude of the OEE changes as a function of this variability. By recruiting large-scale multinational samples, we investigated the size of the OEE across the full range of own and other ethnicity face performance while considering measures of social contact. We find that the magnitude of the OEE is remarkably consistent across all levels of within-population own- and other-ethnicity face recognition ability, and this pattern was unaffected by social contact measures. These findings suggest that the OEE is a persistent feature of face recognition performance, with consequences for models built around very poor, and very good face recognizers.
... This is consistent with the findings by Wong et al. 48 and Tan et al. 28 (but see 27 ). The latter study further explained the observed deficit in the recognition of African faces as a product of insufficient visual experience, which leads to a core lack of perceptual ability in the face system to extract the most diagnostic information from that face race. ...
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It is widely accepted that holistic processing is important for face perception. However, it remains unclear whether the other-race effect (ORE) (i.e. superior recognition for own-race faces) arises from reduced holistic processing of other-race faces. To address this issue, we adopted a cross-cultural design where Malaysian Chinese, African, European Caucasian and Australian Caucasian participants performed four different tasks: (1) yes–no face recognition, (2) composite, (3) whole-part and (4) global–local tasks. Each face task was completed with unfamiliar own- and other-race faces. Results showed a pronounced ORE in the face recognition task. Both composite-face and whole-part effects were found; however, these holistic effects did not appear to be stronger for other-race faces than for own-race faces. In the global–local task, Malaysian Chinese and African participants demonstrated a stronger global processing bias compared to both European- and Australian-Caucasian participants. Importantly, we found little or no cross-task correlation between any of the holistic processing measures and face recognition ability. Overall, our findings cast doubt on the prevailing account that the ORE in face recognition is due to reduced holistic processing in other-race faces. Further studies should adopt an interactionist approach taking into account cultural, motivational, and socio-cognitive factors.
... For example, almost half of their participant sample was non-Caucasian, and it is not clear what race of faces used were. Some unforeseen other race effects, which are characterized by us performing better with faces of our own race than others (Bate et al., 2019;Burns, Tree, Chan, & Xu, 2019;Estudillo, Lee, Mennie, & Burns, 2019;Meissner & Brigham, 2001), may therefore have abolished their cheerleader effects. Also, the participants rated the faces in classrooms with other students present (3-18 individuals per class, with sizes varying across participants), so presumably participants could see their classmates' faces when completing the experiment, again unduly influencing the results by abolishing the memory component (Hsieh et al., 2020). ...
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Cheerleader effects, group attractiveness effects, and divisive normalization are all characterized by faces appearing more attractive when seen within a group. However, it is possible that your friends could have a detrimental effect upon your attractiveness too: if these group effects arose partly as a contrastive process between your face and your friends, then highly attractive friends may diminish your attractiveness. We confirm this hypothesis across two experiments by showing that the presence of highly attractive friends can indeed make you appear less attractive (i.e., a reverse cheerleader effect), suggesting friend effects are driven in part by a contrastive process against the group. However, these effects are also influenced by your own attractiveness in a fashion that appears consistent with hierarchical encoding, where less attractive targets benefit more from being viewed in an increasingly unattractive group than attractive targets. Our final experiment demonstrates that the company of others not only alters our attractiveness, but also induces shifts in how average or distinctive a target face appears too, with these averageness effects associated with the friend effects observed in our first experiment. We present a Friend Effects Framework within which ‘friend effects’ is an umbrella term for the positive (e.g., cheerleader effects, group attractiveness effects) and negative (i.e., the reverse cheerleader effect) ways in which hierarchical encoding, group contrastive effects, and other influences of friends can have on your attractiveness.
... There were 22 participants in the study: 5 people with developmental prosopagnosia (mean age = 27.33; 3 males) and 17 non-prosopagnosia controls (mean age = 21.28; 3 males). All participants were Swansea University students and all were British Caucasians to avoid any potential other race effects (Burns et al., 2019b;Estudillo et al., 2020). Participants with prosopagnosia were paid for their time and control participants received subject-pool participation credit. ...
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When people recognize faces, they normally move their eyes so that their first fixation is in the optimal location for efficient perceptual processing. This location is found just below the centre-point between the eyes. This type of attentional bias could be partly innate, but also an inevitable developmental process that aids our ability to recognize faces. We investigated whether a group of people with developmental prosopagnosia would also demonstrate neurotypical first fixation locations when recognizing faces during an eye-tracking task. We found evidence that adults with prosopagnosia had atypically heterogeneous first fixations in comparison to controls. However, differences were limited to the vertical, but not horizontal, plane of the face. We interpret these findings by suggesting that subtle changes to face-based eye movement patterns in developmental prosopagnosia may underpin their face recognition impairments, and suggest future work is still needed to address this possibility.
... Research with children and adolescents reflects that caregiver and peer biases in face recognition abilities will differentially influence the way individuals from these developmental groups recognize the faces in these tasks (e.g., Picci & Scherf, 2016). Also, the ethnic and racial identification of participants may influence the way individuals recognize faces in these tasks (McKone et al., , 2017, which is associated with real-world social experiences (Estudillo et al., 2020;McKone et al., 2021). ...
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Previous task-related imaging studies in adults have demonstrated that there is a frontoparietal mirror neuron system (MNS) that preferentially engages in self-recognition. However, the development of the MNS during preschool (age 3-5 years) has not been thoroughly examined. In this study, we investigated the development of the MNS by examining the correlations in spontaneous fluctuations of the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal in healthy, 3-5-year-old preschool children (n = 30, 15 in each group). Using a ROI-based (inferior frontal gyrus) functional connectivity analysis, we identified a right lateralized MNS during rest in both groups with a positive correlation between the inferior frontal gyrus and inferior parietal lobule. A significant increase in the functional connectivity of the MNS was observed in the older group. Our results suggest that the spontaneous functional connectivity of the MNS is shaped at as early as 3 years of age and undergoes age-related development within the preschool period.
... Similarly, prosopagnosia cases exhibit abnormalities in the way that they attend to faces (Bobak et al., 2017;Wilcockson et al., submitted;Van Belle et al., 2010;Van Belle et al., 2011) again suggesting that the cortical face network is involved in the attentional processes required for expert level face individuation. The other race effect is characterised by superior performance in recognising own race faces over those of other races (Bate et al., 2018;Burns et al., 2018;Estudillo et al., 2019;Meissner and Brigham, 2001), with the FFA being cited as one of the neural loci for 5 We urge anyone with an interest in the expertise and modular hypotheses to read this paper. It gives a very illuminating account of how the first two successful FFA expertise replications actually originated from a previously unreported collaboration between authors who disagreed on the FFA's functionality. ...
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Psychologists have debated whether the right fusiform face area’s (FFA) responses are domain specific to faces, or domain general for certain object categories that we have visual expertise with. This latter domain general expertise account has been criticised for basing its assumptions upon studies that suffer from small participant numbers, small effects, and statistically significant p-values that are close to .05. An additional criticism is that these findings are difficult to replicate. A modern reader familiar with the replication crisis may therefore question whether the FFA’s expertise effect is real. The p-curve is a relatively new form of meta-analysis that enables researchers to identify whether there is evidential value for any given effect in the literature. We put the literature to the test by running p-curve analyses on all published expertise studies. Contrary to aforementioned criticisms, our meta-analyses confirm the right FFA’s expertise effect is based upon evidential value. We therefore review the broader literature to address additional criticisms of the expertise account and propose ways to improve replicability.
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The own-race bias (ORB) is an effect in which humans remember faces from their own race better than faces from another race. Where people look when processing faces of different races plays a role in this effect, but the exact relationship between looking and the ORB is debated. One perspective is that the same facial features are important for memory for faces of all races and the ORB emerges when people look longer at the useful features for own- than other-race faces. Another perspective is that different facial features are useful for faces of different races and the ORB emerges when people look longer at features that are useful for their own race than at features that are useful for other-race faces. The present study aimed to discriminate these perspectives by examining looking patterns in Asian, Black, and White participants while they learned and later recognized Asian, Black, and White faces. Regardless of their race, participants looked at different facial features depending on the race of the face. In addition, different features were useful for memory depending on the race of the face. As such, results are in line with the perspective that different facial features are useful for different race faces.
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When Face Recognition Goes Wrong explores the myriad ways that humans and machines make mistakes in facial recognition. Adopting a critical stance throughout, the book explores why and how humans and machines make mistakes, covering topics including racial and gender biases, neuropsychological disorders, and widespread algorithm problems. The book features personal anecdotes alongside real-world examples to showcase the often life-changing consequences of facial recognition going wrong. These range from problems with everyday social interactions through to eyewitness identification leading to miscarriages of justice and border control passport verification. Concluding with a look to the future of facial recognition, the author asks the world’s leading experts what are the big questions that still need to be answered, and can we train humans and machines to be super recognisers? This book is a must-read for anyone interested in facial recognition, or in psychology, criminal justice and law.
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Although it is generally assumed that face recognition relies on holistic processing, whether face recognition deficits observed in Developmental Prosopagnosics (DPs) can be explained by impaired holistic processing is currently under debate. The mixed findings from past studies could be the consequence of DP's heterogeneous deficit nature and the use of different measures of holistic processing-the inversion, part-whole, and composite tasks-which showed a poor association among each other. The present study aimed to gain further insight into the role of holistic processing in DPs. Groups of DPs and neurotypicals completed three tests measuring holistic face processing and non-face objects (i.e., Navon task). At a group level, DPs showed (1) diminished, but not absent, inversion and part-whole effects, (2) comparable magnitudes of the composite face effect and (3) global precedence effect in the Navon task. However, single-case analyses showed that these holistic processing deficits in DPs are heterogeneous.
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Although it is generally accepted that face recognition relies on holistic processing, it has been suggested that the simultaneous face matching task may depend on a more analytical or featural processing approach. However, empirical evidence supporting this claim is limited. In two experiments, we further explored the role of holistic and featural processing on simultaneous face matching by manipulating holistic processing through inversion and presenting faces with or without face masks. The results from Experiment 1 revealed that both inversion and face masks impaired matching performance. However, while the inversion effect was evident in both full-view and masked faces, the mask effect was only found in upright, but not inverted, faces. These results were replicated in Experiment 2 but, the inversion and mask effects were stronger in delayed face matching than in simultaneous face matching. Our findings suggest that simultaneous face matching relies on holistic processing, but to a smaller extent compared to higher memory-demanding identification tasks.
Thesis
Dès la naissance, les nourrissons sont exposés à des visages qui parlent. Afin de pouvoir correctement interagir avec leurs congénères, les nouveau-nés vont devoir apprendre à traiter l’information provenant de ceux-ci. Le traitement des visages et le traitement du langage se développent ainsi rapidement durant la première année de vie des nourrissons. Cependant, que ce soit pour les visages ou pour le langage, beaucoup de nourrissons ont un biais d’exposition : ils sont presque exclusivement exposés aux visages de leur type et à leur langue maternelle. Une conséquence de ce biais d’exposition est que les nourrissons vont développer des capacités de discrimination plus fines pour traiter les stimuli natifs que les stimuli non-natifs. Dans la littérature scientifique, ce phénomène appelé rétrécissement perceptif à été mis en évidence de nombreuses fois dans le cadre du développement du langage et dans le cadre du développement du traitement des visages. La trajectoire développementale commune de ces deux systèmes cognitifs durant la première année de vie suggère des interactions entre ces deux systèmes. Cependant, ces interactions sont encore peu étudiées.Le but de la thèse présentée ici était d’étudier les interactions entre les traitements du langage et des visages durant la première année de vie.Dans une première étude, nous avons voulu étudier l’impact du type de visage sur une tâche de correspondance phonémique, sur des nourrissons de 3 et 9 mois. Les nourrissons de 3 mois ne semblent pas faire correspondre une voyelle avec la vidéo d’une locutrice si celle-ci n’est pas d’un type familier. Les résultats de cette étude nous indiquent que dès 3 mois, les nourrissons traitent différemment le signal audio-visuel selon le type du visage qui le produit. Dans une deuxième étude, nous avons voulu évaluer l’impact du type de visage sur la perception de l’effet McGurk, sur des nourrissons de 6, 9 et 12 mois. De plus, nous avons souhaité voir la robustesse de cet effet en l’étudiant de manière interculturelle (en France et au Japon). Nous montrons que la sensibilité à cette illusion audio-visuelle semble dépendante du type de visage. De plus, mis en commun avec nos collègues japonais, nos résultats montrent que la sensibilité à l’effet McGurk peut être conditionné par la culture dans laquelle grandissent les nourrissons. Dans une troisième étude, nous nous sommes intéressés à l’impact des associations entre types de visages et types de langues sur l’attention visuelle des nourrissons de 6, 9 et 12 mois. Cette étude montre qu’à 3 mois, certaines associations de langues et de visages semblent attendus par les nourrissons et plus regardées. Ces associations sont considérées comme congruentes puisqu’elles ne vont pas à l’encontre de ce que les nourrissons rencontrent habituellement dans leur environnement. Dans une quatrième étude, nous avons testé l’impact de ces associations sur la reconnaissance d’individus par des nourrissons de 9 et 12 mois. Nous montrons que les associations congruentes aident la reconnaissance des individus, tandis que les associations incongruentes perturbent la reconnaissance des individus.Ces études renforcent l’idée que d’étroites interactions lient le traitement du langage et le traitement des visages durant la petite enfance. De plus, nous montrons de nouveaux marqueurs du rétrécissement perceptif avant 9 mois. Nous montrons aussi un nouveau moyen expérimental permettant de moduler l’impact du rétrécissement perceptif. Ces travaux de thèse permettent d’élargir nos connaissances concernant le rétrécissement perceptif et ainsi d’en affiner la définition.
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The current research conducted a three-level meta-analysis with a total of 159 journal articles on the other-race bias in facial identification, which had been published between 1969 and 2021. The effect size analysis yielded moderate pooled effect sizes of the other-race bias on face identification—people showed higher hit rates and discriminability, lower false alarm rates, and more stringent criteria for own-race faces than for other-race faces. Results from the sensitivity analysis and publication bias analysis also supported the robustness of the other-race bias. In moderation analyses, participant race (White vs. non-White) and retention interval between the study and test phases produced stable moderating effects on estimates of the other-race bias. Despite an increase in racial diversity for decades in our society, the current meta-analysis still demonstrated robust effects of the other-race bias in facial identification, replicating findings from the previous meta-analyses.
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General Audience Summary People working in security settings, such as passport control, are required to compare the picture of an ID card to the face of its bearer. This task is highly challenging even for people with years of experience. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, different governmental authorities require the use of face masks in public spaces. These masks cover the bottom part of the face, entailing a new challenge for face identification. The present study explored whether, how, and to what extent forensic face matching ability is impaired by face masks. Across two experiments, it was found that face masks decreased face matching performance. Additionally, although performance in a full-view condition was positively associated with the performance in a mask condition, high proficiency in the full-view condition did not always generalize to the mask condition. These results highlight the importance of using different conditions when evaluating face identification for personnel selection in applied scenarios.
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There is considerable interest in whether face and word processing are reliant upon shared or dissociable processes. Developmental prosopagnosia is associated with lifelong face processing deficits, with these cases providing strong support for a dissociation between face and word recognition in three recent papers (Burns et al., 2017; Rubino et al., 2016; Starrfelt et al., 2018). However, the sample sizes in each of these studies may have been too small to detect significant effects. We therefore combined their data to increase power and reassessed their results. While only a non-significant trend for reading impairments was found in prosopagnosia using a one-sample t-test, poorer face memory performance was correlated with slower reading speeds across prosopagnosia and control participants. Surprisingly, poorer face perception skills in prosopagnosia were associated with smaller word length effects. This suggests that while mild reading impairments exist in developmental prosopagnosia, there may be a trade-off between their residual face perception abilities and reading skill. A reanalysis of Hills and colleagues’ (2015) acquired prosopagnosia data also revealed a positive relationship between words and faces: severe impairments in face recognition were related to poorer word processing. In summary, the developmental and acquired prosopagnosia literature supports models of visual perception that posit face and word processing are reliant upon broadly shared processes.
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The 20-Item Prosopagnosia Items (PI-20) was recently introduced as a self-report measure of face recognition abilities and as an instrument to help the diagnosis of prosopagnosia. In general, studies using this questionnaire have shown that observers have moderate to strong insights into their face recognition abilities. However, it remains unknown whether these insights are equivalent for the whole range of face recognition abilities. The present study investigates this issue using the Mandarin version of the PI-20 and the Cambridge Face Memory Test Chinese (CFMT-Chinese). Our results showed a moderate negative association between the PI-20 and the CFMT-Chinese. However, this association was driven by people with low and high face recognition ability, but absent in people within the typical range of face recognition performance. The implications of these results for the study of individual differences and the diagnosis of prosopagnosia are discussed.
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People vary in their ability to identify faces, and this variability is relatively stable across repeated testing. This suggests that recruiting high performers can improve identity verification accuracy in applied settings. Here, we report the first systematic study to evaluate real-world benefits of selecting high performers based on performance in standardized face identification tests. We simulated a recruitment process for a specialist team tasked with detecting fraudulent passport applications. University students (n = 114) completed a battery of screening tests followed by a real-world face identification task that is performed routinely when issuing identity documents. Consistent with previous work, individual differences in the real-world task were relatively stable across repeated tests taken 1 week apart (r = 0.6), and accuracy scores on screening tests and the real-world task were moderately correlated. Nevertheless, performance gains achieved by selecting groups based on screening tests were surprisingly small, leading to a 7% improvement in accuracy. Statistically aggregating decisions across individuals—using a ‘wisdom of crowds’ approach—led to more substantial gains than selection alone. Finally, controlling for individual accuracy of team members, the performance of a team in one test predicted their performance in a subsequent test, suggesting that a ‘good team’ is not only defined by the individual accuracy of team members. Overall, these results underline the need to use a combination of approaches to improve face identification performance in professional settings. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s41235-018-0114-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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We report the existence of a previously undescribed group of people, namely individuals who are so poor at recognition of other-race faces that they meet criteria for clinical-level impairment (i.e., they are “face-blind” for other-race faces). Testing 550 participants, and using the well-validated Cambridge Face Memory Test for diagnosing face blindness, results show the rate of other-race face blindness to be nontrivial, specifically 8.1% of Caucasians and Asians raised in majority own-race countries. Results also show risk factors for other-race face blindness to include: a lack of interracial contact; and being at the lower end of the normal range of general face recognition ability (i.e., even for own-race faces); but not applying less individuating effort to other-race than own-race faces. Findings provide a potential resolution of contradictory evidence concerning the importance of the other-race effect (ORE), by explaining how it is possible for the mean ORE to be modest in size (suggesting a genuine but minor problem), and simultaneously for individuals to suffer major functional consequences in the real world (e.g., eyewitness misidentification of other-race offenders leading to wrongful imprisonment). Findings imply that, in legal settings, evaluating an eyewitness’s chance of having made an other-race misidentification requires information about the underlying face recognition abilities of the individual witness. Additionally, analogy with prosopagnosia (inability to recognize even own-race faces) suggests everyday social interactions with other-race people, such as those between colleagues in the workplace, will be seriously impacted by the ORE in some people.
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Early linguistic experience has an impact on the way we decode audiovisual speech in face-to-face communication. The present study examined whether differences in visual speech decoding could be linked to a broader difference in face processing. To identify a phoneme we have to do an analysis of the speaker’s face to focus on the relevant cues for speech decoding (e.g., locating the mouth with respect to the eyes). Face recognition processes were investigated through two classic effects in face recognition studies: the Other-Race Effect (ORE) and the Inversion Effect. Bilingual and monolingual participants did a face recognition task with Caucasian faces (own race), Chinese faces (other race), and cars that were presented in an Upright or Inverted position. The results revealed that monolinguals exhibited the classic ORE. Bilinguals did not. Overall, bilinguals were slower than monolinguals. These results suggest that bilinguals’ face processing abilities differ from monolinguals’. Early exposure to more than one language may lead to a perceptual organization that goes beyond language processing and could extend to face analysis. We hypothesize that these differences could be due to the fact that bilinguals focus on different parts of the face than monolinguals, making them more efficient in other race face processing but slower. However, more studies using eye-tracking techniques are necessary to confirm this explanation.
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Facial analysis is anthropologically useful to identify the racial, ethnical, and sexual differences. The present study was done to see the sex difference and variation of facial index among Malaysian population. Cross-sectional descriptive type of study was done in Anatomy Department in UniKL RCMP which was performed on 81 Malay people (40 males, 41 females) aged 19–30 years. To measure the morphological parameters (facial height, facial width, and facial index), digital slide calliper and scale were used. There were significant differences found in all facial parameters of males compared with the females. The mean morphological facial height was 111.9 ± 8.4 and morphological facial width was 127.3 ± 8.0. The range of facial index was 67.44–106.90 for males and 75.21–97.99 for females. The total facial index was calculated according to the formula and the results obtained were analyzed statistically using the t -test which was statistically significant (0.003). The dominant phenotype in Malay population was mesoprosopic or round face (45%) and least common face type was hyperleptoprosopic or very long face (5%). There were significant variations in the face index between Malay males and females; further study with large sample size in different races in Malaysia is recommended.
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While a change in view is considered to be one of the most damaging manipulations for facial identification, this phenomenon has been measured traditionally with tasks that confound perceptual processes with recognition memory. This study explored facial identification with a pairwise matching task to determine whether view generalization is possible when memory factors are minimised. Experiment 1 showed that the detrimental view effect in recognition memory is attenuated in face matching. Moreover, analysis of individual differences revealed that some observers can identify faces across view with perfect accuracy. This was replicated in Experiment 2, which also showed that view generalization is unaffected when only the internal facial features are shown. These results indicate that the view effect in recognition memory does not arise from data limits, whereby faces contain insufficient visual information to allow identification across views. Instead, these findings point to resource limits, within observers, that hamper such person identification in recognition memory.
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Face recognition, holistic processing, and processing of configural and featural facial information are known to be influenced by face race, with better performance for own- than other-race faces. However, whether these various other-race effects (OREs) arise from the same underlying mechanisms or from different processes remain unclear. The present study addressed this question by measuring the OREs in a set of face recognition tasks, and testing whether these OREs are correlated with each other. Participants performed different tasks probing (1) face recognition, (2) holistic processing, (3) processing of configural information, and (4) processing of featural information for both own- and other-race faces. Their contact with other-race people was also assessed with a questionnaire. The results show significant OREs in tasks testing face memory and processing of configural information, but not in tasks testing either holistic processing or processing of featural information. Importantly, there was no cross-task correlation between any of the measured OREs. Moreover, the level of other-race contact predicted only the OREs obtained in tasks testing face memory and processing of configural information. These results indicate that these various cross-race differences originate from different aspects of face processing, in contrary to the view that the ORE in face recognition is due to cross-race differences in terms of holistic processing.
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Faces are probably the most widely studied visual stimulus. Most research on face processing has used a group-mean approach that averages behavioral or neural responses to faces across individuals and treats variance between individuals as noise. However, individual differences in face processing can provide valuable information that complements and extends findings from group-mean studies. Here we demonstrate that studies employing an individual differences approach—examining associations and dissociations across individuals—can answer fundamental questions about the way face processing operates. In particular these studies allow us to associate and dissociate the mechanisms involved in face processing, tie behavioral face processing mechanisms to neural mechanisms, link face processing to broader capacities and quantify developmental influences on face processing. The individual differences approach we illustrate here is a powerful method that should be further explored within the domain of face processing as well as fruitfully applied across the cognitive sciences.
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Photo-ID is widely used in security settings, despite research showing that viewers find it very difficult to match unfamiliar faces. Here we test participants with specialist experience and training in the task: passport-issuing officers. First, we ask officers to compare photos to live ID-card bearers, and observe high error rates, including 14% false acceptance of 'fraudulent' photos. Second, we compare passport officers with a set of student participants, and find equally poor levels of accuracy in both groups. Finally, we observe that passport officers show no performance advantage over the general population on a standardised face-matching task. Across all tasks, we observe very large individual differences: while average performance of passport staff was poor, some officers performed very accurately - though this was not related to length of experience or training. We propose that improvements in security could be made by emphasising personnel selection.
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Dual process models of recognition memory propose two distinct routes for recognizing a face: recollection and familiarity. Recollection is characterized by the remembering of some contextual detail from a previous encounter with a face whereas familiarity is the feeling of finding a face familiar without any contextual details. The Remember/Know (R/K) paradigm is thought to index the relative contributions of recollection and familiarity to recognition performance. Despite researchers measuring face recognition deficits in developmental prosopagnosia (DP) through a variety of methods, none have considered the distinct contributions of recollection and familiarity to recognition performance. The present study examined recognition memory for faces in eight individuals with DP and a group of controls using an R/K paradigm while recording electroencephalogram (EEG) data at the scalp. Those with DP were found to produce fewer correct “remember” responses and more false alarms than controls. EEG results showed that posterior “remember” old/new effects were delayed and restricted to the right posterior (RP) area in those with DP in comparison to the controls. A posterior “know” old/new effect commonly associated with familiarity for faces was only present in the controls whereas individuals with DP exhibited a frontal “know” old/new effect commonly associated with words, objects and pictures. These results suggest that individuals with DP do not utilize normal face-specific routes when making face recognition judgments but instead process faces using a pathway more commonly associated with objects.
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Faces are visual stimuli full of information. Depending upon the familiarity with a face, the information we can extract will differ, so the more familiarity with a face, the more information that can be extracted from it. The present article reviews the role that pre-existing knowledge of a face has in its processing. Here, we focus on behavioral, electrophysiological and neuroimaging evidence. The influence of familiarity in early stages (attention, perception and working memory) and in later stages (pre-semantic and semantic knowledge) of the processing are discussed. The differences in brain anatomy for familiar and unfamiliar faces are also considered. As it will be shown, experimental data seems to support that familiarity can affect even the earliest stages of the recognition.
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The other-race effect (ORE) in face recognition refers to better recognition memory for faces of one's own race than faces of another race-a common phenomenon among individuals living in primarily mono-racial societies. In this article, we review findings suggesting that early visual and sociocultural experiences shape one's processing of familiar and unfamiliar race classes and give rise to the ORE within the 1st year of life. However, despite its early development, the ORE can be prevented, attenuated, and even reversed given experience with a novel race class. Social implications of the ORE are discussed in relation to development of race-based preferences for social partners and racial prejudices.
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Other-race and other-ethnicity effects on face memory have remained a topic of consistent research interest over several decades, across fields including face perception, social psychology, and forensic psychology (eyewitness testimony). Here we demonstrate that the Cambridge Face Memory Test format provides a robust method for measuring these effects. Testing the Cambridge Face Memory Test original version (CFMT-original; European-ancestry faces from Boston USA) and a new Cambridge Face Memory Test Chinese (CFMT-Chinese), with European and Asian observers, we report a race-of-face by race-of-observer interaction that was highly significant despite modest sample size and despite observers who had quite high exposure to the other race. We attribute this to high statistical power arising from the very high internal reliability of the tasks. This power also allows us to demonstrate a much smaller within-race other ethnicity effect, based on differences in European physiognomy between Boston faces/observers and Australian faces/observers (using the CFMT-Australian).
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The current article reviews the own-race bias (ORB) phenomenon in memory for human faces, the finding that own-race faces are better remembered when compared with memory for faces of another, less familiar race. Data were analyzed from 39 research articles, involving 91 independent samples and nearly 5,000 participants. Measures of hit and false alarm rates, and aggregate measures of discrimination accuracy and response criterion were examined, including an analysis of 8 study moderators. Several theoretical relationships were also assessed (i.e., the influence of racial attitudes and interracial contact). Overall, results indicated a "mirror effect" pattern in which own-race faces yielded a higher proportion of hits and a lower proportion of false alarms compared with other-race faces. Consistent with this effect, a significant ORB was also found in aggregate measures of discrimination accuracy and response criterion. The influence of perceptual learning and differentiation processes in the ORB are discussed, in addition to the practical implications of this phenomenon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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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.
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Although humans possess well-developed face processing expertise, face processing is nevertheless subject to a variety of biases. Perhaps the best known of these biases is the Cross-Race Effect--the tendency to have more accurate recognition for same-race than cross-race faces. The current work reviews the evidence for and provides a critical review of theories of the Cross-Race Effect, including perceptual expertise and social cognitive accounts of the bias. The authors conclude that recent hybrid models of the Cross-Race Effect, which combine elements of both perceptual expertise and social cognitive frameworks, provide an opportunity for theoretical synthesis and advancement not afforded by independent expertise or social cognitive models. Finally, the authors suggest future research directions intended to further develop a comprehensive and integrative understanding of biases in face recognition.
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The Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) and Cambridge Face Perception Test (CFPT) have provided the first theoretically strong clinical tests for prosopagnosia based on novel rather than famous faces. Here, we assess the extent to which norms for these tasks must take into account ageing, sex, and testing country. Data were from Australians aged 18 to 88 years (N = 240 for CFMT; 128 for CFPT) and young adult Israelis (N = 49 for CFMT). Participants were unselected for face recognition ability; most were university educated. The diagnosis cut-off for prosopagnosia (2 SDs poorer than mean) was affected by age, participant-stimulus ethnic match (within Caucasians), and sex for middle-aged and older adults on the CFPT. We also report internal reliability, correlation between face memory and face perception, correlations with intelligence-related measures, correlation with self-report, distribution shape for the CFMT, and prevalence of developmental prosopagnosia.
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Although it is well established that people are better at recognizing own-race faces than at recognizing other-race faces, the neural mechanisms mediating this advantage are not well understood. In this study, Caucasian participants were trained to differentiate African American (or Hispanic) faces at the individual level (e.g., Joe, Bob) and to categorize Hispanic (or African American) faces at the basic level of race (e.g., Hispanic, African American). Behaviorally, subordinate-level individuation training led to improved performance on a posttraining recognition test, relative to basic-level training. As measured by event-related potentials, subordinate- and basic-level training had relatively little effect on the face N170 component. However, as compared with basic-level training, subordinate-level training elicited an increased response in the posterior expert N250 component. These results demonstrate that learning to discriminate other-race faces at the subordinate level of the individual leads to improved recognition and enhanced activation of the expert N250 component.
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Explored recognition for faces of persons of own and other race in 20 black and 20 white undergraduates at both a predominantly black and a predominantly white university. 10 stimulus photographs each of black and white males were selected from a pool of stimulus photographs for recognition. The d' measure defined by signal detection theory was used as an index of discriminability/acuity. White faces were found more discriminable than black faces, and Ss were found to habe higher acuity for faces of own race. Questionnaire data suggest differential experience with persons of other race only for black Ss at the white university, and fail to show a relation of reported experience to recognition acuity. The hypothesis of greater heterogeneity of white faces was not tested.
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The two standardized tests of face recognition that are widely used suffer from serious shortcomings [Duchaine, B. & Weidenfeld, A. (2003). An evaluation of two commonly used tests of unfamiliar face recognition. Neuropsychologia, 41, 713-720; Duchaine, B. & Nakayama, K. (2004). Developmental prosopagnosia and the Benton Facial Recognition Test. Neurology, 62, 1219-1220]. Images in the Warrington Recognition Memory for Faces test include substantial non-facial information, and the simultaneous presentation of faces in the Benton Facial Recognition Test allows feature matching. Here, we present results from a new test, the Cambridge Face Memory Test, which builds on the strengths of the previous tests. In the test, participants are introduced to six target faces, and then they are tested with forced choice items consisting of three faces, one of which is a target. For each target face, three test items contain views identical to those studied in the introduction, five present novel views, and four present novel views with noise. There are a total of 72 items, and 50 controls averaged 58. To determine whether the test requires the special mechanisms used to recognize upright faces, we conducted two experiments. We predicted that controls would perform much more poorly when the face images are inverted, and as predicted, inverted performance was much worse with a mean of 42. Next we assessed whether eight prosopagnosics would perform poorly on the upright version. The prosopagnosic mean was 37, and six prosopagnosics scored outside the normal range. In contrast, the Warrington test and the Benton test failed to classify a majority of the prosopagnosics as impaired. These results indicate that the new test effectively assesses face recognition across a wide range of abilities.
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Previous studies examining face learning have mostly used only a single exposure to 1 image of each of the faces to be learned. However, in daily life, faces are usually learned from multiple encounters. These 6 experiments examined the effects on face learning of repeated exposures to single or multiple images of a face. All experiments provided evidence for image-specific picture learning taking place over and above any invariant face learning, with recognition accuracy always highest for the image studied and performance falling across transformations between study and test images. The relative roles of pictorial and structural codes in mediating learning faces from photographs need to be reconsidered.
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It has recently been suggested that the other race effect (ORE), whereby own race faces are recognised better than those of other races, can be abolished by bilingualism. Bilingualism, however, is not a categorical variable but can vary dramatically in proficiency across the two languages. We therefore hypothesised that increasing bilingual proficiency should be associated with a diminishing ORE. To test this, we asked a group of bilingual Singaporean Chinese individuals to complete the Asian and Caucasian Cambridge Face Memory Tests. In contrast to recent work, our bilinguals did as a group exhibit an ORE, however, the magnitude of this effect decreased as reported cross-language proficiency increased; Chinese, rather than English, listening ability drove this association. This relationship persisted even when taking into account our participants' exposure to Caucasians, own race memory ability, age, and gender. Moreover, we discounted the possibility that bilingualism merely reflected participants' underlying intelligence. Increasing auditory bilingualism thus diminishes perceptual narrowing for faces. We propose that other race recognition ability reflects the base level of intrinsic, domain specific face memory, whereas the distance in recognition performance between own and other race faces is comprised of a domain general process related to stimulus individuation. Finally, our results have serious implications for how we can interpret prior research investigating the ORE, and culture's influence on visual perception, due to the confounding influence of bilingualism.
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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.
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The Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) is widely accepted as providing a valid and reliable tool in diagnosing prosopagnosia (inability to recognize people's faces). Previously, large-sample norms have been available only for Caucasian-face versions, suitable for diagnosis in Caucasian observers. These are invalid for observers of different races due to potentially severe other-race effects. Here, we provide large-sample norms (N = 306) for East Asian observers on an Asian-face version (CFMT-Chinese). We also demonstrate methodological suitability of the CFMT-Chinese for prosopagnosia diagnosis (high internal reliability, approximately normal distribution, norm-score range sufficiently far above chance). Additional findings were a female advantage on mean performance, plus a difference between participants living in the East (China) or the West (international students, second-generation children of immigrants), which we suggest might reflect personality differences associated with willingness to emigrate. Finally, we demonstrate suitability of the CFMT-Chinese for individual differences studies that use correlations within the normal range.
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Developmental prosopagnosia ( DP ) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by severe face identity recognition problems that results from a failure to develop the mechanisms necessary for adequate face processing (Duchaine BC, Nakayama K. Developmental prosopagnosia: a window to content‐specific face processing. Curr Opin Neurobiol 2006, 16:166–173.). It occurs in children and adults with normal visual acuity, and without intellectual impairments or known brain injuries. Given the importance of face recognition in daily life, and the detrimental effects of impaired face recognition, DP is an important area of study. Yet conventions for classifying individuals as DP for research purposes are poorly defined. In this focus paper, we discuss: (1) criteria for an operational definition of DP ; 2) tests of face recognition and conventions for classifying individuals as DP ; and 3) important considerations regarding common associations and dissociations, and cognitive heterogeneity in DP . We also highlight issues unique to studying DP in children, a relatively new endeavor that is proving to be an important complement to the work with adults. Ultimately, we hope to identify challenges researchers face when studying DP , and offer guidelines for others to consider when embarking on their own research pursuits on the topic. WIREs Cogn Sci 2016, 7:73–87. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1374 This article is categorized under: Psychology > Brain Function and Dysfunction Psychology > Development and Aging Psychology > Perception and Psychophysics
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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.
Article
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.
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Abstract The concept of a multi-dimensional psychological space, in which faces can be represented according to their perceived properties, is fundamental to the modern theorist in face processing. Yet the idea was not clearly expressed until 1991. The background that led to Valentine's (1991a) face-space is explained and its continuing influence on theories of face processing is discussed. Research that has explored the properties of the face-space and sought to understand caricature, including facial adaptation paradigms is reviewed. Face-space as a theoretical framework for understanding the effect of ethnicity and the development of face recognition is evaluated. Finally two applications of face-space in the forensic setting are discussed. From initially being presented as a model to explain distinctiveness, inversion and the effect of ethnicity, face-space has become a central pillar in many aspects of face processing. It is currently being developed to help us understand adaptation effects with faces. While being in principle a simple concept, face-space has shaped, and continues to shape, our understanding of face perception.
Article
Although previous studies have demonstrated that faces of one's own race are recognized more accurately than are faces of other races, the theoretical basis of this effect is not clearly understood at present. The experiment reported in this paper tested the contact hypothesis of the own-race bias in face recognition using a cross-cultural design. Four groups of subjects were tested for their recognition of distinctive and typical own-race and other-race faces: (1) black Africans who had a high degree of contact with white faces, (2) black Africans who had little or no contact with white faces, (3) white Africans who had a high degree of contact with black faces, and (4) white Britons who had little contact with black faces. The results showed that although on the whole subjects recognized own-race faces more accurately and more confidently than they recognized other-race faces, the own-race bias in face recognition was significantly smaller among the high-contact subjects than it was among the low-contact subjects. Also, although high-contact black and white subjects showed significant main effects of distinctiveness in their recognition of faces of both races, low-contact black and white subjects showed significant main effects of distinctiveness only in their recognition of own-race faces. It is argued that these results support the contact hypothesis of the own-race bias in face recognition and Valentine's multidimensional space (MDS) framework of face encoding.This study was funded by a grant awarded to the first author by the Ford Foundation through the University of Zimbabwe. Grant No. 880/051.
Article
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)
Article
It is well known that adults' face recognition is characterized by an 'other-race effect' (ORE; see Meissner & Brigham, 2001), but few studies have investigated this ORE during the development of the face processing system. Here we examined the role of experience with other-race faces during childhood by testing a group of 6- to 14-year-old Asian children adopted between 2 and 26 months in Caucasian families living in Western Europe, as well as a group of age-matched Caucasian children. The latter group showed a strong ORE in favour of own-race faces that was stable from 6 to 14 years of age. The adopted participants did not show a significant reversal of the ORE, unlike a recently reported study (Sangrigoli et al., 2005), but rather comparable results with Asian and Caucasian faces. Their pattern of performance was neither influenced by their age of adoption, nor by the amount of experience they accumulated during childhood with other-race faces. These results indicate that the balance of performance with Asian and Caucasian faces can be modulated, but not completely reversed, in children whose exposure to own- and other-race faces changes drastically during the period of maturation of the face recognition system, depending on the length of exposure to the new face race. Overall, experience appears to be crucial during childhood to shape the face recognition system towards the most predominant morphologies of faces present in the environment.
Article
Two experiments examined the effect of recognition accuracy and latency of changing the view of faces between presentation and test. In Expt 1, all the faces were unfamiliar to the subjects. Faces at test were either unchanged, or changed in angle (e.g. full face to 3/4), expression (e.g. smiling to unsmiling) or both. Unchanged faces were recognized more quickly and accurately than faces with a change in angle or expression which were in turn better than faces with both changed. In Expt 2, half the faces were highly familiar to the subjects, and at test unfamiliar and familiar faces were either unchanged or changed in both angle and expression. Unfamiliar faces were recognized more slowly and less accurately if changed at test, while familiar faces were recognized more slowly though no less accurately if change (though performance was effectively at ceiling). Familiar faces were recognized more quickly and accurately than unfamiliar, though false positive rates and rejection latencies were similar for familiars and unfamiliars. The results are discussed in terms of the combination of information from "pictorial', "structural', and "semantic' and "name' codes.
Article
Early experience with faces of a given racial type facilitates visual recognition for this type of face relative to others. To assess whether this so-called other-race effect can be reversed by subsequent experience with new types of faces, we tested adults of Korean origin who were adopted by European Caucasian families when they were between the ages of 3 to 9. The adoptees performed a face recognition task with photographs of Caucasian and Asian faces. They performed exactly like a control group of French participants, identifying the Caucasian faces better than the Asiatic ones. In contrast, a control group of Koreans showed the reverse pattern. This result indicates that the face recognition system remains plastic enough during childhood to reverse the other-race effect.
Article
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.
Mapped: The world by English-speaking population
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Perception and motivation in face recognition
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Young, S. G., Hugenberg, K., Bernstein, M. J., & Sacco, D. F. (2012). Perception and motivation in face recognition. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16(2), 116-142. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868
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Sangrigoli, S., Pallier, C., Argenti, A.‐M., Ventureyra, V. A. G., & de Schonen, S.. (2016). Reversibility of the other‐race effect in face recognition during childhood: <https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0956‐7976.2005.01554.X>