British Face Research Articles

The Headscarf Effect: Direct Evidence from the Eyewitness Identification Paradigm

SummaryInternal and external features dominate familiar and unfamiliar face recognition, respectively. However, this finding is not universal; Egyptians showed a robust internal‐feature advantage for processing unfamiliar faces (Megreya & Bindemann, 2009). This bias was speculatively attributed to their long‐term experiences for individuating female faces with headscarves, which completely cover the external features. Here, we provided an empirical test for this suggestion. Participants from Egypt and UK were presented with a staged crime, which was committed by an own‐race woman with or without a headscarf. All participants were then asked to identify the culprit from a line‐up involving 10 faces with or without headscarves. British participants showed an advantage when the culprit left her hair uncovered. In contrast, Egyptian observers showed an advantage when the culprit wore a headscarf. This Egyptian headscarf effect was also replicated using British faces, suggesting that it reflects a specific characteristic of participant nationality rather than face nationality. These results therefore provide evidence for how culture influences cognition. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Revisiting the Processing of Internal and External Features of Unfamiliar Faces: The Headscarf Effect

Five experiments are reported in which the relative importance of internal and external features for unfamiliar face identification are examined by a matching task. In experiments 1-3, Egyptian adults showed a robust internal-feature advantage for matching photographs of Egyptian faces. In experiment 4, a cross-cultural comparison between the ability of Egyptian and British adults to match the internal and external features of unfamiliar Egyptian and British faces was made. Once again, Egyptians showed an internal-feature advantage, for all faces. In contrast, British observers and also Egyptian children in experiment 5--showed external-feature advantages consistent with previous research. We attribute this contrast to the long-term experience of Egyptians in perceiving and recognising faces with headscarves, which might develop more expertise in processing the internal than the external features of unfamiliar faces.

The english and their englishness: “A curiously mysterious, elusive and little understood people”

Abstract This paper explores the ambiguities of Englishness/ Britishness from a political geography perspective. An Anglo‐British identity is described in which English territoriality is shown to be both more and less than the geographical area of England. Upper England comprises the south‐east corner of the country only — the Home Counties’ — which is identified as the Crown Heartland of a particularly conservative nationalism. Greater England is the British face of English identity which as hegemon, empire and currently through the City of London used and uses Upper England as a base for extra‐territorial projects. Finally the implications of this unusual nationalism are reviewed in terms of a possible break‐up of England.

Sex Differences in Memory for Faces

Summary The present study replicates McKelvie's finding that a sex interaction, representing an own-sex effect for females, occurs on facial recognition when Canadian Ss view Canadian faces (Experiment 5), but not British faces (Experiments 1 and 2). In addition, it was shown (Experiments 4 and 5) that the interaction was also absent when Ss were exposed to other faces which did not belong to their peers (photographs of Canadian children, line drawings of adults and children). Finally (Experiment 3), the British faces were rated as less attractive than their Canadian counterparts as a result of the lower ratings assigned to the females. Alternative explanations for these results are considered, and it is argued that the sex-linked interaction emerges when females pay extra attention to female faces and that this is likely when the faces are familiar and relatively attractive.