Other-race Faces Research Articles

Face Race Processing and Racial Bias in Early Development: A Perceptual-Social Linkage

Infants have asymmetrical exposure to different types of faces (e.g., more human than nonhuman, more female than male, and more own-race than other-race). What are the developmental consequences of such experiential asymmetry? Here, we review recent advances in research on the development of cross-race face processing. The evidence suggests that greater exposure to own- than other-race faces in infancy leads to developmentally early differences in visual preferences for, recognition of, formation of categories for, and scanning of own- and other-race faces. Further, such perceptual differences in infancy may be associated with the emergence of implicit racial bias, consistent with a perceptual-social linkage hypothesis. Current and future work derived from this hypothesis may lay an important empirical foundation for the development of intervention programs to combat the early occurrence of implicit racial bias.

Systems Factorial Technology provides new insights on the other-race effect.

The other-race effect refers to the difficulty of discriminating between faces from ethnic and racial groups other than one's own. This effect may be caused by a slow, feature-by-feature, analytic process, whereas the discrimination of own-race faces occurs faster and more holistically. However, this distinction has received inconsistent support. To provide a critical test, we employed Systems Factorial Technology (Townsend & Nozawa in Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 39, 321-359, 1995), which is a powerful tool for analyzing the organization of mental networks underlying perceptual processes. We compared Taiwanese participants' face discriminations of both own-race (Taiwanese woman) and other-race (Caucasian woman) faces according to the faces' nose-to-mouth separation and eye-to-eye separation. We found evidence for weak holistic processing (parallel processing) coupled with the strong analytic property of a self-terminating stopping rule for own-race faces, in contrast to strong analytic processing (serial self-terminating processing) for other-race faces, supporting the holistic/analytic hypothesis.

The Effect of Gaze Direction on Face Recognition of Own and Other Races

The own-race bias in face recognition is one of the most replicated findings in cognitive psychology; however, it has been shown to be affected by gaze direction. The current study explored the effect of gaze direction on different race faces using a facial recognition task. Participants were 30 Han males and 32 Han women. The facial recognition task involved presentation of 40 faces with manipulated eye gaze direction; then, participants were shown the same 40 faces randomly mixed with 40 new faces, and were asked to point out which faces they had seen previously as quickly and as accurately as possible. The results showed that hit rates, false alarm rates, and response bias (C) were influenced by gaze direction. Furthermore, gaze direction and race had a significant interaction effect on C. Under the averted-gaze condition, the C for the Han face images was higher than that for the minority faces images, while there was no significant difference in C under the direct-gaze condition. These findings indicate that the influence of other-race faces exposure on C was mediated by the averted-gaze direction.

Physical coldness enhances racial in-group bias in empathy: Electrophysiological evidence

Empathy for others' pain plays a key role in prosocial behavior and is influenced by intergroup relationships. Increasing evidence suggests greater empathy for racial in-group than out-group individuals' pain and the racial in-group bias undergoes sociocultural and biological influences. The present study further investigated whether and how physical environments influence racial in-group bias in empathy by testing the hypothesis that sensory experiences of physical coldness versus warmth enhance differential empathic neural responses to racial in-group vs. out-group individuals' suffering. We recorded event-related brain potentials to painful versus neutral expressions of same-race and other-race faces when participants held a cold or warm pack. We found that brain activity in the N2 (200–340ms) and P3 (400–600ms) time windows over the frontal/central region was positively shifted by painful (vs. neutral) expressions. Moreover, the N2/P3 empathic neural responses were significantly larger for same-race than other-race faces in the cold but not in the warm condition. Moreover, subjective ratings of different temperatures in the cold vs. warm conditions predicted larger changes of racial in-group bias in empathic neural responses in the N2 time window. Our findings suggest that sensory experiences of physical coldness can strengthen emotional resonance with same-race individuals.

Perceptual individuation training (but not mere exposure) reduces implicit racial bias in preschool children.

Two studies with preschool-age children examined the effectiveness of perceptual individuation training at reducing racial bias (Study 1, N = 32; Study 2, N = 56). We found that training preschool-age children to individuate other-race faces resulted in a reduction in implicit racial bias while mere exposure to other-race faces produced no such effect. We also showed that neither individuation training nor mere exposure reduced explicit racial bias. Theoretically, our findings provide strong evidence for a causal link between individual-level face processing and implicit racial bias, and are consistent with the newly proposed perceptual-social linkage hypothesis. Practically, our findings suggest that offering children experiences that allow them to increase their expertise in processing individual other-race faces will help reduce their implicit racial bias. (PsycINFO Database Record

The other-race effect in face learning: Using naturalistic images to investigate face ethnicity effects in a learning paradigm.

The other-race effect in face identification has been reported in many situations and by many different ethnicities, yet it remains poorly understood. One reason for this lack of clarity may be a limitation in the methodologies that have been used to test it. Experiments typically use an old-new recognition task to demonstrate the existence of the other-race effect, but such tasks are susceptible to different social and perceptual influences, particularly in terms of the extent to which all faces are equally individuated at study. In this paper we report an experiment in which we used a face learning methodology to measure the other-race effect. We obtained naturalistic photographs of Chinese and Caucasian individuals, which allowed us to test the ability of participants to generalize their learning to new ecologically valid exemplars of a face identity. We show a strong own-race advantage in face learning, such that participants required many fewer trials to learn names of own-race individuals than those of other-race individuals and were better able to identify learned own-race individuals in novel naturalistic stimuli. Since our methodology requires individuation of all faces, and generalization over large image changes, our finding of an other-race effect can be attributed to a specific deficit in the sensitivity of perceptual and memory processes to other-race faces.

Poor recognition of other-race faces cannot always be explained by a lack of effort

ABSTRACTPeople are generally better at recognizing own-race than other-race faces. This “other-race effect” is very well established although the underlying causes are much debated. Social-cognitive accounts argue that the other-race effect stems from a lack of motivation to individuate other-race faces, whereas perceptual expertise accounts argue that it reflects the tuning of face-processing mechanisms by experience to own-race faces. We investigated the effort people apply to recognize own-race and other-race faces. Caucasian participants completed the Australian and Chinese Cambridge Face Memory Tasks, once with the standard timing and once with self-paced study phases. If people are less motivated to recognize other-race faces they should apply less effort, that is, when given control over viewing times they should spend less time studying other-race than own-race faces. Contrary to social-cognitive accounts, there was no evidence of reduced effort for other-race faces. Participants did not spend less time studying other-race than own-race faces in the self-paced condition. Moreover, participants reported applying significantly more effort to telling apart other-race than own-race faces. These results are not consistent with reduced motivation to individuate other-race faces. Thus, they appear more consistent with perceptual expertise rather than social-cognitive accounts of the other-race effect.

Attention modulates the own-age bias in face recognition

Numerous studies have found that participants are more accurate at remembering faces from their own-age group rather than other-age group (the own-age bias, OAB, in face recognition). An experience-based account has suggested that more extensive experience on own-age faces than other-race faces causes this bias. There is also a socio-cognitive account, which suggested that individuals have stronger motivation to own-age than other-age faces. However, some recent studies suggested that differential allocation of attention to own-age versus other-age faces may play a role in the underlying process of the OAB. The aim of this study is to investigate whether and how attention affects the own-age bias in face recognition and memory. In Experiment 1, we tested the roles of attention by comparing task performance in focused versus divided attention conditions in two experiments. Firstly, in Experiment 1a, we manipulated participants’ attention by asking or not asking participants to perform a visual interference task when they were performing a face recognition task. Secondly, in Experiment 1b, we adopted auditory interference task to manipulate participants’ attention. The results showed that (i) the OAB emerged in the subsequent memory task in focused attention condition but not in divided attention condition; and (ii) participants’ recognition of own-age faces declined more in divided attention condition than in focused attention condition. Why own-age bias disappeared under a divided attention condition and the divided attention condition interfered memory task performance only for own-age faces? Previous studies suggested that participants tend to adopt more holistic processing for their own-age faces than other-age faces. Is it possible that the divided attention has interfered the holistic processing, and thus own-age faces cannot be processed holistically? We tested this possibility in Experiment 2. Using the same attention manipulation technique in Experiment 1, in Experiment 2, we compared the composite face effect (CFE, a marker of holistic face processing) of the own-age and other-age faces in focused attention versus divided attention condition. The results showed that (i) CFE emerged for the own-age faces in the focused attention condition but not in the divided attention condition; and (ii) we failed to observe CFE in other-age faces for both attention conditions. In summary, we found (i) divided attention, relative to focused attention, can eliminate the OAB in face recognition by reducing the performance of the own-age face recognition; and (ii) the holistic processing of the own-age faces is impaired by the divided attention so that the own-age face recognition performance is reduced and the OAB of face recognition emerged.

Are You Blind to Faces of Other Races?

Some people are seriously impaired when it comes to recognizing individuals of another color

Infants Rely More on Gaze Cues From Own-Race Than Other-Race Adults for Learning Under Uncertainty.

Differential experience leads infants to have perceptual processing advantages for own- over other-race faces, but whether this experience has downstream consequences is unknown. Three experiments examined whether 7-month-olds (range=5.9-8.5months; N=96) use gaze from own- versus other-race adults to anticipate events. When gaze predicted an event's occurrence with 100% reliability, 7-month-olds followed both adults equally; with 25% (chance) reliability, neither was followed. However, with 50% (uncertain) reliability, infants followed own- over other-race gaze. Differential face race experience may thus affect how infants use social cues from own- versus other-race adults for learning. Such findings suggest that infants integrate online statistical reliability information with prior knowledge of own versus other race to guide social interaction and learning.

The Effects of Face Inversion and Face Race on the P100 ERP

Research about the neural basis of face recognition has investigated the timing and anatomical substrates of different stages of face processing. Scalp-recorded ERP studies of face processing have focused on the N170, an ERP with a peak latency of ∼170 msec that has long been associated with the initial structural encoding of faces. However, several studies have reported earlier ERP differences related to faces, suggesting that face-specific processes might occur before N170. Here, we examined the influence of face inversion and face race on the timing of face-sensitive scalp-recorded ERPs by examining neural responses to upright and inverted line-drawn and luminance-matched white and black faces in a sample of white participants. We found that the P100 ERP evoked by inverted faces was significantly larger than that evoked by upright faces. Although this inversion effect was statistically significant at 100 msec, the inverted-upright ERP difference peaked at 138 msec, suggesting that it might represent an activity in neural sources that overlap with P100. Inverse modeling of the inversion effect difference waveform suggested possible neural sources in pericalcarine extrastriate visual cortex and lateral occipito-temporal cortex. We also found that the inversion effect difference wave was larger for white faces. These results are consistent with behavioral evidence that individuals process the faces of their own races more configurally than faces of other races. Taken together, the inversion and race effects observed in the current study suggest that configuration influences face processing by at least 100 msec.

Social Categories Alone Are Insufficient to Elicit an In-Group Advantage in Perceptions of Within-Person Variability.

Within-person variability affects identity perception of other-race faces more than own-race faces; when participants sort images into piles representing different identities, they sort photographs of two other-race identities into more piles than two own-race identities. These results have been interpreted in terms of perceptual expertise, such that lack of experience with other-race faces leads to reduced ability to extract identity-relevant information across images. However, an alternative explanation is that sociocognitive factors (e.g., cognitive disregard for out-group faces) lead to differences in the number of perceived identities. Here, we examined whether social factors alone elicit an in-group advantage in perceptions of within-person variability. Caucasian participants sorted 40 photographs of two unfamiliar Caucasian identities (20 photographs/model) into piles based on the number of identities they believed were present. Half of the participants were told that the images were of students attending their university (in-group), whereas half were told that the images were of students attending a rival university (out-group). Participants sorted the photographs into a comparable number of identities for in- and out-group faces. This lack of an in-group advantage suggests that sociocognitive factors alone cannot account for differences in the number of perceived identities across faces from two categories.

Follow My Gaze: Face Race and Sex Influence Gaze-Cued Attention in Infancy.

Using the eye gaze of others to direct one's own attention develops during the first year of life and is thought to be an important skill for learning and social communication. However, it is currently unclear whether infants differentially attend to and encode objects cued by the eye gaze of individuals within familiar groups (e.g., own race, more familiar sex) relative to unfamiliar groups (e.g., other race, less familiar sex). During gaze cueing, but prior to the presentation of objects, 10-month-olds looked longer to the eyes of own-race faces relative to 5-month-olds and relative to the eyes of other-race faces. After gaze cueing, two objects were presented alongside the face and at both ages, infants looked longer to the uncued objects for faces from the more familiar-sex and longer to cued objects for the less familiar-sex faces. Finally, during the test phase, both 5- and 10-month-old infants looked longer to uncued objects relative to cued objects but only when the objects were cued by an own-race and familiar-sex individual. Results demonstrate that infants use face eye gaze differently when the cue comes from someone within a highly experienced group.

Older but not younger infants associate own‐race faces with happy music and other‐race faces with sad music

We used a novel intermodal association task to examine whether infants associate own- and other-race faces with music of different emotional valences. Three- to 9-month-olds saw a series of neutral own- or other-race faces paired with happy or sad musical excerpts. Three- to 6-month-olds did not show any specific association between face race and music. At 9months, however, infants looked longer at own-race faces paired with happy music than at own-race faces paired with sad music. Nine-month-olds also looked longer at other-race faces paired with sad music than at other-race faces paired with happy music. These results indicate that infants with nearly exclusive own-race face experience develop associations between face race and music emotional valence in the first year of life. The potential implications of such associations for developing racial biases in early childhood are discussed.

Corrigendum to "Invisible own- and other-race faces presented under continuous flash suppression produce affective response biases" [Conscious Cogn. 48 (2017) 273-282

The authors insert a missing affiliation “The State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China” for Xiaoqing Hu, and modify Yuhao Lu's affiliation to “School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia”. The authors would like to apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Invisible own- and other-race faces presented under continuous flash suppression produce affective response biases.

One triumph of the human mind is the ability to place the multitudinous array of people we encounter into in- and out-group members based on racial characteristics. One fundamental question that remains to be answered is whether invisible own- and other-race faces can nevertheless influence subsequent affective judgments. Here, we employed continuous flash suppression (CFS) to render own- and other-race faces unperceivable in an affective priming task. Both on-line and off-line awareness checks were employed to provide more stringent control of partial awareness. Results revealed that relative to own-race faces, imperceptible other-race faces significantly facilitated participants' identification of negative words, suggesting an other-race derogation bias. When faces were presented consciously, we found that not only other-race faces facilitated detection of negative words, but also own-race faces facilitated detection of positive words. These findings together provide novel and strong evidence suggesting that invisible racial faces can bias affective responses.

Face-blind for other-race faces: Individual differences in other-race recognition impairments.

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. (PsycINFO Database Record

A search advantage for dynamic same-race and other-race faces

ABSTRACTPrevious work has found faster and more accurate recognition of faces learned from moving sequences than from static images. However, it is unclear whether the motion advantage can be generalized to other-race face learning. In two experiments, we examined the motion advantage for same-race and other-race faces in the context of a delayed visual search task and investigated the importance of face repetitions and clip length at learning. Participants learned faces as a static image or a moving clip and then searched for these target faces in visual arrays. Same-race target faces were located faster and more accurately than other-race targets. A dynamic search advantage was revealed for both same-race and other-race faces, whereby search latencies were shorter, and accuracy higher, for faces learned in motion. Furthermore, differing clip lengths and face repetitions during familiarization yielded the same dynamic advantage (Experiment 2), suggesting that motion provides a robust and valuable cue for the identification of both same-race and other-race faces.

The other-race effect in children from a multiracial population: A cross-cultural comparison

The role of experience with other-race faces in the development of the other-race effect was investigated through a cross-cultural comparison between 5- and 6-year-olds and 13- and 14-year-olds raised in a monoracial (British White, n=83) population and a multiracial (Malaysian Chinese, n=68) population. British White children showed an other-race effect to three other-race faces (Chinese, Malay, and African Black) that was stable across age. Malaysian Chinese children showed a recognition deficit for less experienced faces (African Black) but showed a recognition advantage for faces of which they have direct or indirect experience. Interestingly, younger (Malaysian Chinese) children showed no other-race effect for female faces such that they can recognize all female faces regardless of race. These findings point to the importance of early race and gender experiences in reorganizing the face representation to accommodate changes in experience across development.

Supplemental Material for Face-Blind for Other-Race Faces: Individual Differences in Other-Race Recognition Impairments

Supplemental Material for Face-Blind for Other-Race Faces: Individual Differences in Other-Race Recognition Impairments