title: The other-race effect does not rely on memory: Evidence from a matching task.
abstract: Viewers are typically better at remembering faces from their own race than from other races; however, it is not yet established whether this effect is due to memorial or perceptual processes. In this study, UK and Egyptian viewers were given a simultaneous face-matching task, in which the target faces were presented upright or upside down. As with previous research using face memory tasks, participants were worse at matching other-race faces than own-race faces and showed a stronger face inversion effect for own-race faces. However, subjects' performance on own and other-race faces was highly correlated. These data provide strong evidence that difficulty in perceptual encoding of unfamiliar faces contributes substantially to the other-race effect and that accounts based entirely on memory cannot capture the full data. Implications for forensic settings are also discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Menoufia University, Egypt. m.burton@abdn.ac.uk
authors.forename: Ahmed M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Megreya
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: White
authors.forename: A Mike
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Burton
mesh_terms: D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D004534:Egypt / Q000208:ethnology; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000523:psychology*; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D044469:Racial Groups; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000208:ethnology; D055815:Young Adult