Ever wondered why it seems harder to distinguish between folk from other races than from your own?
It''s a historical issue too-"To the uninitiated American," wrote Gustave Feingold in 1914, "all Asiatics look alike, while to the Asiatics, all White men look alike."
Researchers led by Heather Lucas and her colleagues of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University showed participants colour photographs of the faces of white, black, Hispanic and east and south Asian adult men, presented in random order on a computer screen. The participants were asked to pay close attention to the faces and try to remember them for a recognition test. Afterwards, they were shown some of the same faces again, as well as some new ones, and asked to indicate whether or not they had seen each one before.
The electrical activity of their brains was recorded throughout the experiment showing a correlatation between electrophysiological recordings with memory performance for other-race faces. The results could be interepreted that same-race faces are encoded elaborately, with an emphasis on the unique facial features that help us to distinguish one person from another. For other-race faces, however, this individuating information is encoded less robustly.
Consequently, we have a poorer memory for other-race faces, and are therefore less likely to recognise them or to distinguish between them. Distinctive other-race faces appear to be an exception, however, and may be processed in a similar way to same-race faces.
Another study comes from Robert Caldara's lab at the University of Glasgow, and looks at how the brain's responses change with repeated exposure to same-race and other-race faces. The other-race effect has been consistently observed in caucasians, but these findings suggest that it may be a generalised response that occurs in people of all races. The researchers therefore suggest that the other-race effect may occur because the brain encodes other-race faces primarily according to the racial group they belong to, rather than by distinguishing features.
Another factor that is likely to contribute to the other-race effect is familiarity – or, rather, lack thereof. In a 2003 study, researchers showed black and white participants from South Africa and England photographs of black and white faces and then asked them if they had seen each of the faces before. Both groups identified same-race faces more accurately than other-race faces, but some of the black participants could accurately identify white faces.
References
Lucas, HD et al. (2011). Why some faces won't be remembered: brain potentials illuminate successful versus unsuccessful encoding for same-race and other-race faces. Frontiers of Human Neuroscience. DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2011.00020
Vizioli, L et al. (2010). Neural repetition suppression to identity is abolished by other-race faces. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1005751107
Wright, DB et al. (2003). Inter-racial Contact and the Own-race Bias for Face Recognition in South Africa and England. Applied Cognitive Psychology. DOI: 10.1002/acp.898
Researchers led by Heather Lucas and her colleagues of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University showed participants colour photographs of the faces of white, black, Hispanic and east and south Asian adult men, presented in random order on a computer screen. The participants were asked to pay close attention to the faces and try to remember them for a recognition test. Afterwards, they were shown some of the same faces again, as well as some new ones, and asked to indicate whether or not they had seen each one before.
The electrical activity of their brains was recorded throughout the experiment showing a correlatation between electrophysiological recordings with memory performance for other-race faces. The results could be interepreted that same-race faces are encoded elaborately, with an emphasis on the unique facial features that help us to distinguish one person from another. For other-race faces, however, this individuating information is encoded less robustly.
Consequently, we have a poorer memory for other-race faces, and are therefore less likely to recognise them or to distinguish between them. Distinctive other-race faces appear to be an exception, however, and may be processed in a similar way to same-race faces.
Another study comes from Robert Caldara's lab at the University of Glasgow, and looks at how the brain's responses change with repeated exposure to same-race and other-race faces. The other-race effect has been consistently observed in caucasians, but these findings suggest that it may be a generalised response that occurs in people of all races. The researchers therefore suggest that the other-race effect may occur because the brain encodes other-race faces primarily according to the racial group they belong to, rather than by distinguishing features.
Another factor that is likely to contribute to the other-race effect is familiarity – or, rather, lack thereof. In a 2003 study, researchers showed black and white participants from South Africa and England photographs of black and white faces and then asked them if they had seen each of the faces before. Both groups identified same-race faces more accurately than other-race faces, but some of the black participants could accurately identify white faces.
References
Lucas, HD et al. (2011). Why some faces won't be remembered: brain potentials illuminate successful versus unsuccessful encoding for same-race and other-race faces. Frontiers of Human Neuroscience. DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2011.00020
Vizioli, L et al. (2010). Neural repetition suppression to identity is abolished by other-race faces. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1005751107
Wright, DB et al. (2003). Inter-racial Contact and the Own-race Bias for Face Recognition in South Africa and England. Applied Cognitive Psychology. DOI: 10.1002/acp.898
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