Face Race Research Articles

Self-reported face recognition abilities for own and other-race faces

PurposeThe 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/approachChinese 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.FindingsRecognition 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/implicationsThese results suggest that observers’ insights to recognize faces are more consistent and reliable for own-race faces.Practical implicationsSelf-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/valueIn contrast to own race recognition, people have very limited insights into their recognition abilities for other race faces.

Infant Eye Gaze While Viewing Dynamic Faces.

Research using eye tracking methods has revealed that when viewing faces, between 6 to 10 months of age, infants begin to shift visual attention from the eye region to the mouth region. Moreover, this shift varies with stimulus characteristics and infants’ experience with faces and languages. The current study examined the eye movements of a racially diverse sample of 98 infants between 7.5 and 10.5 months of age as they viewed movies of White and Asian American women reciting a nursery rhyme (the auditory component of the movies was replaced with music to eliminate the influence of the speech on infants’ looking behavior). Using an analytic approach inspired by the multiverse analysis approach, several measures from infants’ eye gaze were examined to identify patterns that were robust across different analyses. Although in general infants preferred the lower regions of the faces, i.e., the region containing the mouth, this preference depended on the stimulus characteristics and was stronger for infants whose typical experience included faces of more races and for infants who were exposed to multiple languages. These results show how we can leverage the richness of eye tracking data with infants to add to our understanding of the factors that influence infants’ visual exploration of faces.

Predominance of eyes and surface information for face race categorization

Faces can be categorized in various ways, for example as male or female or as belonging to a specific biogeographic ancestry (race). Here we tested the importance of the main facial features for race perception. We exchanged inner facial features (eyes, mouth or nose), face contour (everything but those) or texture (surface information) between Asian and Caucasian faces. Features were exchanged one at a time, creating for each Asian/Caucasian face pair ten facial variations of the original face pair. German and Korean participants performed a race classification task on all faces presented in random order. The results show that eyes and texture are major determinants of perceived biogeographic ancestry for both groups of participants and for both face types. Inserting these features in a face of another race changed its perceived biogeographic ancestry. Contour, nose and mouth, in that order, had decreasing and much weaker influence on race perception for both participant groups. Exchanging those features did not induce a change of perceived biogeographic ancestry. In our study, all manipulated features were imbedded in natural looking faces, which were shown in an off-frontal view. Our findings confirm and extend previous studies investigating the importance of various facial features for race perception.

Do perceptual expertise and implicit racial bias predict early face-sensitive ERP responses?

Studies examining the visual perception of face race have revealed mixed findings regarding the presence or direction of effects on early face-sensitive event-related potential (ERP) components. Few studies have examined how early ERP components are influenced by individual differences in bottom-up and top-down processes involved in face perception, and how such factors might interact to influence early face-sensitive ERP components has yet to be investigated. Thus, the current study examined whether P100, N170, and P200 responses can be predicted by individual differences in own- and other-race face recognition, implicit racial bias, and their interaction. Race effects were observed in the P100, N170, and P200 responses. Other-race face recognition, implicit racial biases, and their interaction explained a significant amount of unique variability in N170 responses when viewing other-race faces. Responses to own-race faces were minimally influenced with only implicit racial bias predicting a significant amount of unique variability in N170 latency when viewing own-race faces. Face recognition, implicit racial bias, or their interaction did not predict P100 responses. The current findings suggest that face recognition abilities and its interaction with implicit racial bias modulate the early stages of other-race face processing.

Looking at the own-race bias: Eye-tracking investigations of memory for different race faces

ABSTRACT Humans remember the faces of members of their own race more accurately than the faces of members of other races, in an effect known as the own-race bias. Previous studies indicate that patterns of eye fixations play an important role in this bias, but the exact nature of their influence on face memory is not clear. The present study examined the role of eye fixations on memory for racially East Asian, Black, and White faces in East Asian and White participants. Results revealed greater looking at the eyes of East Asian and White faces than the eyes of Black faces, and greater looking at the nose/mouth of Black faces than the nose/mouth of East Asian and White faces. In addition, longer time looking at the eyes of all faces predicted better memory for all faces, and longer time looking at the nose/mouth of Black faces predicted better memory for Black faces. These findings are best characterized by a model of face memory in which the eyes are critical for all faces, but certain features (e.g., nose/mouth) may be additionally important for certain race faces (e.g., Black faces).

The development of race effects in face processing from childhood through adulthood: Neural and behavioral evidence.

Most adults are better at recognizing recently encountered faces of their own race, relative to faces of other races. In adults, this race effect in face recognition is associated with differential neural representations of own- and other-race faces in the fusiform face area (FFA), a high-level visual region involved in face recognition. Previous research has linked these differential face representations in adults to viewers' implicit racial associations. However, despite the fact that the FFA undergoes a gradual development which continues well into adulthood, little is known about the developmental time-course of the race effect in FFA responses. Also unclear is how this race effect might relate to the development of face recognition or implicit associations with own- or other-races during childhood and adolescence. To examine the developmental trajectory of these race effects, in a cross-sectional study of European American (EA) children (ages 7-11), adolescents (ages 12-16) and adults (ages 18-35), we evaluated responses to adult African American (AA) and EA face stimuli, using functional magnetic resonance imaging and separate behavioral measures outside the scanner. We found that FFA responses to AA and EA faces differentiated during development from childhood into adulthood; meanwhile, the magnitudes of race effects increased in behavioral measures of face-recognition and implicit racial associations. These three race effects were positively correlated, even after controlling for age. These findings suggest that social and perceptual experiences shape a protracted development of the race effect in face processing that continues well into adulthood.

Convolutional neural net face recognition works in non-human-like ways

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) give the state-of-the-art performance in many pattern recognition problems but can be fooled by carefully crafted patterns of noise. We report that CNN face recognition systems also make surprising ‘errors'. We tested six commercial face recognition CNNs and found that they outperform typical human participants on standard face-matching tasks. However, they also declare matches that humans would not, where one image from the pair has been transformed to appear a different sex or race. This is not due to poor performance; the best CNNs perform almost perfectly on the human face-matching tasks, but also declare the most matches for faces of a different apparent race or sex. Although differing on the salience of sex and race, humans and computer systems are not working in completely different ways. They tend to find the same pairs of images difficult, suggesting some agreement about the underlying similarity space.

FEATURES OF THE "VERBAL PORTRAIT" OF CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN CAUCASIANS OF RUSSIA, COMPILED FROM THE BACK OF THE HEAD

The article is devoted to the search for differential diagnostic features of appearance that allow an expert level to judge whether an unknown person belongs to the Central or southern local Caucasian race, which is important in the practice of identity identification. Research material: verbal description of the appearance of 116 Central and 64 southern Europeans (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians; Avars, Abkhazians, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Dargins, Ingush, Kabardins, Lezgins, Ossetians, etc.). The description of the appearance was made from the back of the head according to the original method, which includes 15 features. Methods of variation statistics were used to process the data obtained. Diagnostic coefficients were calculated for statistically significantly different values (p<0.05). It was found that black hair (8,2), low level of hair growth (3,1), post-traumatic deformation of the auricles (2,1), and hair growth in a counterclockwise curl (2,0) are the most typical for southern Caucasians. Central Caucasians are characterized by light brown (-14,7) or light brown hair (-4,1), moles or freckles on the back of the head or neck (-3,4) egg-shaped head (-2,1), high hair growth (-2,1). It is shown that the set of features allows us to achieve a practically reliable level of solving the problem of the local racial type of an unknown person. A distinctive feature and advantage of the developed feature system is the ability to solve an expert problem in situations where the most informative area in terms of race and diagnostics-the face – is destroyed (if we are talking about an unidentified corpse) or hidden from CCTV cameras (if we are talking about a criminal hiding his appearance).

Individual Differences in Infants' Temperament Affect Face Processing.

Infants show an advantage in processing female and familiar race faces, but the effect sizes are often small, suggesting individual differences in their discrimination abilities. This research assessed whether differences in 6–10-month-olds’ temperament (surgency and orienting) predicted how they scanned individual faces varying in race and gender during familiarization and whether and how long it took them to locate the face during a visual search task. This study also examined whether infants viewing faces posing pleasant relative to neutral expressions would facilitate their discrimination of male and unfamiliar race faces. Results showed that infants’ surgency on its own or in conjunction with their orienting regularly interacted with facial characteristics to predict their scanning and location of faces. Furthermore, infants’ scanning patterns (dwell times and internal–external fixation shifts) correlated with their ability and time to locate a familiarized face. Moreover, infants who viewed faces with pleasant expressions showed better discrimination of unfamiliar race and male faces compared with infants who viewed neutral faces. Including temperament in the analyses consistently demonstrated its significance for understanding infant face processing. Findings suggest that positive interactions with other-race individuals and men might reduce processing disadvantages for those face types. Locating familiar adults in a timely manner is a crucial skill for infants to develop and these data elucidate factors influencing this ability.

Other-Groups Bias Effects: Recognizing Majority and Minority Outgroup Faces

A large literature has provided evidence that intergroup biases are common in facial recognition. In investigations of faces of different races, research has repeatedly demonstrated an Own Race Bias in which people are more accurate in recognizing racial ingroup compared to outgroup members. The primary goal of this research was to investigate whether participants from typically underrepresented populations in social psychological research (i.e., Blacks, South Asians, and East Asians) show biases in recognition accuracy when presented with ingroup faces and minority and majority outgroup faces. Not surprisingly, across three experiments, participants demonstrated superior recognition for faces of members of their own compared to other races. Although minority participants also demonstrated greater recognition accuracy for majority compared to minority outgroup faces, these effects were much smaller and typically nonsignificant. The implications of these findings for our understanding of basic processes in face perception, and intergroup relations, are discussed.

Practice, purpose, and master narrative: Teachers face race and the South in lesson design

This comparative case study examines the place of white supremacy in teacher lessons on the U.S. South. Multi-day lesson plans and interviews with three teacher participants revealed that open encounters with white supremacist histories were supported by a high degree of professional freedom in their school settings. The teachers held a common commitment to teach about white racism and violence. However, extending these lessons into a more comprehensive confrontation with harmful white supremacist master narratives is complicated by highly varied conceptions of the history classroom, among these teachers and in the field of social studies. This study supports continued efforts to provide teachers with resources and space to address racist legacies. I recommend that these efforts should be paired with an inspection of the individual and collective conceptions of social studies classrooms so that master narratives may be addressed more directly.

Positive intergroup contact modulates fusiform gyrus activity to black and white faces

In this study, we investigated the effect of intergroup contact on processing of own- and other-race faces using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Previous studies have shown a neural own-race effect with greater BOLD response to own race compared to other race faces. In our study, white participants completed a social-categorization task and an individuation task while viewing the faces of both black and white strangers after having answered questions about their previous experiences with black people. We found that positive contact modulated BOLD activity in the right fusiform gyrus (rFG) and left inferior occipital gyrus (lIOC), regions associated with face processing. Within these regions, higher positive contact was associated with higher activity when processing black, compared to white faces during the social categorisation task. We also found that in both regions a greater amount of individuating experience with black people was associated with greater activation for black vs. white faces in the individuation task. Quantity of contact, implicit racial bias and negatively valenced contact showed no effects. Our findings suggest that positive contact and individuating experience directly modulate processing of out-group faces in the visual cortex, and illustrate that contact quality rather than mere familiarity is an important factor in reducing the own race face effect.

Caucasian Infants' Attentional Orienting to Own- and Other-Race Faces.

Infants show preferential attention toward faces and detect faces embedded within complex naturalistic scenes. Newborn infants are insensitive to race, but rapidly develop differential processing of own- and other-race faces. In the present study, we investigated the development of attentional orienting toward own- and other-race faces embedded within naturalistic scenes. Infants aged six-, nine- and twelve-months did not show differences in the speed of orienting to own- and other race faces, but other-race faces held infants’ visual attention for longer. We also found a clear developmental progression in attentional capture and holding, with older infants orienting to faces faster and fixating them for longer. Results are interpreted within the context of the two-process model of face processing.

Super‐Recognisers show an advantage for other race face identification

SummaryThe accurate identification of an unfamiliar individual from a face photo is a critical factor in several applied situations (e.g., border control). Despite this, matching faces to photographic ID is highly prone to error. In lieu of effective training measures, which could reduce face matching errors, the selection of “super‐recognisers” (SRs) provides the most promising route to combat misidentification or fraud. However, to date, super‐recognition has been defined and tested using almost exclusively “own‐race” face memory and matching tests. Here, across three studies, we test Caucasian participants' performance on own‐ and other‐race face identification tasks (GFMT, MFMT, CFMT+, EFMT, CFMT‐Chinese). Our findings show that compared to controls, high‐performing typical recognisers (Studies 1 and 2) and SRs (Study 3) show superior performance on both the own‐ and other‐race tests. These findings suggest that recruiting SRs in ethnically diverse applied settings could be advantageous.

Dear British criminology: Where has all the race and racism gone?

In this article we use Emirbayer and Desmond’s institutional reflexivity framework to critically examine the production of racial knowledge in British criminology. Identifying weakness, neglect and marginalization in theorizing race and racism, we focus principally on the disciplinary unconscious element of their three-tier framework, identifying and interrogating aspects of criminology’s ‘obligatory problematics’, ‘habits of thought’ and ‘position-taking’ as well as its institutional structure and social relations that combine to render the discipline ‘institutionally white’. We also consider, briefly, aspects of criminology’s relationship to race, racism and whiteness in the USA. The final part of the article makes the case for British criminology to engage in telling and narrating racisms, urging it to understand the complexities of race in our subject matter, avoid its reduction to class and inequality, and to pay particular attention to reflexivity, history, sociology and language, turning to face race with postcolonial tools and resolve.

No evidence of other‐race effect for Chinese faces in Malaysian non‐Chinese population

SummaryThe other‐race effect (ORE) reflects poor recognition of faces of a different race to one's own. According to the expertise‐individuation hypothesis, this phenomenon is a consequence of limited experience with other‐race faces. Thus, similar experience with own and other‐race faces should abolish the ORE. This study explores the ORE in a multi‐racial country (i.e., Malaysia) by comparing Malaysian observers' face recognition for faces of a predominant racial group in Malaysia (i.e., Chinese) with faces from an uncommon group (i.e., Caucasian). Malaysian Chinese, Malays, and Malaysian Indians completed the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) and the CFMT‐Chinese. Compared with the normative scores, Malaysian observers showed poor performance in the CFMT‐Caucasian. Interestingly, Malays and Malaysian Indians observers' performance was identical to that of Malaysian Chinese in the CFMT‐Chinese and to the normative scores of the test. These results demonstrate the relevance of experience in shaping the ORE.

“They all still look the same to me”: Navon processing and the cross-race effect

ABSTRACTResearch suggests the Cross-Race Effect (CRE), the difficulty to remember faces from a different race relative to their own, is due to other race faces being processed featurally. It has been theorised that if individuals process other race faces the same as they do same race faces (globally) the CRE could be attenuated. Research inducing global processing, through the use of a Navon processing task, has improved memory for same race faces. Across two experiments we explored if inducing global processing through the Navon processing task prior to encoding (Experiment 1) and at both encoding and retrieval (Experiment 2) would reduce the CRE. Results revealed that biasing White participants’ processing orientations failed to improve memory for Black faces. Furthermore, in Experiment 2, global processing impaired participants’ memory for identifying faces relative to a control group. Practical implications and the need to address inconsistencies in the Navon processing literature are discussed.

A Portrayal of Ecological Perspectives on Climate Change in Indian Cinema

With fires raging throughout the Amazon forest and the spectre of climate change staring in the face of humanity, the world's most pressing issue today is mitigating the threat posed to the environment by man-made disasters. It is no surprise then that at global forums, world leaders are desperately trying to work together to devise methods of preserving biodiversity and mitigating environmental degradation. This paper looks at climate change and natural disasters in the Indian context by analysing a Malayalam film, Ottaal (The Trap), an adaptation of Vanka, one of the timeless works of Russian writer Anton Chekhov. The 18th century story has been retold by setting it in a small village in present-day Kerala. Ottaal is a realistic portrayal of the suffering of individuals who face the adverse effects of climate change. The film presents a snapshot of the Earth's climate crisis with global temperatures rising at an alarming pace, and glaciers disappearing quicker than ever. The paper also explores India's role in preventing the grim future that the human race faces. A country with a third of the world's population, India is an industrialised nation that accounts for two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions. The resulting global warming has troubled nature's rhythm, causing floods, droughts, extensive hunger, displacement, epidemics, and death. These negative impacts are borne mostly by vulnerable groups like the poor, Adivasis, Dalits, and women. This cruel reality exposes and invites us to perceive climate change politics as a social justice issue. The distinctive geographic location of India also makes it extremely susceptible to natural disasters and climate change. Temperature and rainfall patterns have been erratic in the recent past, resulting in natural calamities. The paper also defines vulnerable regions and communities, and proposes fresh policy initiatives that could assist in reducing the impacts and after-effects of disasters.

Recognition of faces despite changes in appearance: How similarity and race affect our tolerance for within-person variability

Successful face recognition involves the ability to generalize recognition across within-person variability in appearance (e.g., lighting, expressions). Research shows we are less tolerant of within-person variability in unfamiliar faces1 and particularly for other-race faces2,3. Less is known about how face similarity influences adults’ ability to build stable face representations that are tolerant to variability in appearance, and whether this process differs for own- versus other-race faces. We applied a sorting task1 to assess people’s ability to recognize faces across variability. White and East Asian adults (currently n = 35) were handed a stack of 40 photographs of two identities and were asked to sort them into different piles based on identity, such that each pile contained all photos of the same identity. Adults were not told the correct number of identities and were randomly assigned to sort either own- or other-race faces and pairs that either looked similar or dissimilar. We analyzed the number of perceived identities (i.e., number of piles created) and intrusion errors (i.e., different person/same pile). Preliminary analysis based on data from the White participants (n = 27) indicated no significant main effects or interaction between face race and similarity on the number of perceived identities (ps > .46; Figure 1). However, we found a significant interaction between face race and similarity on intrusion errors (F(1) = 4.78, p = 0.039, η2 = .17; Figure 2). Consistent with past research4, this finding suggests that the ability to discriminate between identities is impaired for other-race compared to own-race faces particularly when the faces look extremely similar (i.e., densely clustered in face space5). People’s ability to form stable facial representations might be influenced by the way in which own- and other-race faces are mentally represented in face space, making this research theoretically important.

Individuals with low other race effect employ a global eye movement strategy when recognizing other race faces.

Individuals with low other race effect employ a global eye movement strategy when recognizing other race faces.