Abstract
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.
Highlights
The ideal socio-cultural norms promote anti-discrimination behavior
We first report the regression results with the factors implicit racial bias, experience, and face recognition ability on memory performance for the Other-race effect (ORE), and for otherand own-race faces
We focus on the eye movements during the learning session and report the regression results on the positions of two initial fixations made on other- and own-race faces
Summary
The ideal socio-cultural norms promote anti-discrimination behavior. There is an increasing amount of anti-discrimination policies implemented at various levels of the society, the biases against individuals of other races have not been decreased in recent years (Wetts & Willer, 2018). There is a large body of evidence that individuals in minority racial groups are discriminated against during hiring processes (Zschirnt & Ruedin, 2016) or medical treatments (Goyal et al, 2015), and they often receive suboptimal housing or credits conditions (Pager & Shepherd, 2008). Understanding the factors that contribute to the successful recognition of other-race faces may help to produce solutions to alleviate some adverse effects of racial issues in social behavior. The poor recognition of other-race faces is thought to be associated with differential processing strategies for own- vs. otherrace faces, impaired holistic processing for other- than own-race faces
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