title: Face-blind for other-race faces: Individual differences in other-race recognition impairments.
abstract: 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
authors.affiliation: Research School of Psychology.
authors.forename: Lulu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wan
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Western Australia.
authors.forename: Kate
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Crookes
authors.affiliation: Research School of Psychology.
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dawel
authors.affiliation: Research School of Psychology.
authors.forename: Madeleine
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pidcock
authors.affiliation: Research School of Psychology.
authors.forename: Ashleigh
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hall
authors.affiliation: Research School of Psychology.
authors.forename: Elinor
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: McKone
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D044466:Asian People / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D000066499:Facial Recognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D011822:Race Relations; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult