Two faces of the other-race effect: recognition and categorisation of Caucasian and Chinese faces.
The other-race effect is a collection of phenomena whereby faces of one's own race are processed differently from those of other races. Previous studies have revealed a paradoxical mirror pattern of an own-race advantage in face recognition and an other-race advantage in race-based categorisation. With a well-controlled design, we compared recognition and categorisation of own-race and other-race faces in both Caucasian and Chinese participants. Compared with own-race faces, other-race faces were less accurately and more slowly recognised, whereas they were more rapidly categorised by race. The mirror pattern was confirmed by a unique negative correlation between the two effects in terms of reaction time with a hierarchical regression analysis. This finding suggests an antagonistic interaction between the processing of face identity and that of face category, and a common underlying processing mechanism.
Ge
Liezhong
L
Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, PR China.
Zhang
Hongchuan
H
Wang
Zhe
Z
Quinn
Paul C
PC
Pascalis
Olivier
O
Kelly
David
D
Slater
Alan
A
Tian
Jie
J
Lee
Kang
K
D044466:Asian People / Q000523:psychology*; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult