Removing the own-race bias in face recognition by shifting attention [Abstract

Abstract

The own-race bias (ORB) in face recognition can be interpreted as a failure to generalise expert perceptual encoding developed for own-race faces to other-race faces. Further, black participants appear to use different features to describe faces than white participants (Shepherd and Deregowski, 1981 British Journal of Social Psychology 20 125 - 133). An experiment is reported where the size of the ORB was assessed by a standard face-recognition procedure before and after a 1 hour training regime. This regime involved training white participants to distinguish faces that varied only on their chin, nose, and mouth. The ORB, present prior to training, was removed after training. It is concluded that the ORB is a consequence of a failure of attention being directed to those features of other-race faces that are useful for identification.