Why the other‐race effect matters: Poor recognition of other‐race faces impacts everyday social interactions

Abstract

What happens to everyday social interactions when other‐race recognition fails? Here, we provide the first formal investigation of this question. We gave East Asian international students (N = 89) a questionnaire concerning their experiences of the other‐race effect (ORE) in Australia, and a laboratory test of their objective other‐race face recognition deficit using the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT). As a ‘perpetrator’ of the ORE, participants reported that their problems telling apart Caucasian people contributed significantly to difficulties socializing with them. Moreover, the severity of this problem correlated with their ORE on the CFMT. As a ‘victim’ of the ORE, participants reported that Caucasians' problems telling them apart also contributed to difficulties socializing. Further, 81% of participants had been confused with other Asians by a Caucasian authority figure (e.g., university tutor, workplace boss), resulting in varying levels of upset/difficulty. When compared to previously established contributors to international students' high rates of social isolation, ORE‐related problems were perceived as equally important as the language barrier and only moderately less important than cultural differences. We conclude that the real‐world impact of the ORE extends beyond previously identified specialized settings (eyewitness testimony, security), to common everyday situations experienced by all humans.

Facial expressions elicit multiplexed perceptions of emotion categories and dimensions

“…For the emotion categorization task we generated 2400 random facial expressions-i.e., random combinations of dynamic AUsand displayed each on one of 8 photorealistic face identities of real people of the same ethnicity as participants (white, 4 females, 4 males, mean age = 28 years, SD = 3.85 years), captured using a high-resolution 3D face capture system (see Yu et al 10 ), to control for the potential effects of other-ethnicity perception. 91 For the valence and arousal dimensional rating task, we generated a further 2400 random facial expressions and displayed each on the same face identities used in the emotion categorization task. For each participant, we randomly split the stimuli into two sets of 1200 facial expressions and assigned each stimulus set to one of the two rating tasks of valence and arousal.…”

“…Given that culture and linguistic background is a known source of variance in perception (e.g., see Shablack and Lindquist, 60 Nisbett and Masuda, 76 Roberson et al., 88 Chua et al., 89 and Jack 90 for reviews), and that differences between the ethnicity of face stimuli and participants can modulate social face perception (e.g., see McKone et al. 91 for a review), we controlled these factors by including a sample of same-culture (Western) and same-ethnicity (white) English-speaking participants—a population in which the six classic emotion categories and the dimensions of valence and arousal are well-established constructs. 90 , 92 , 93 , 94 Future work will further examine whether and how such factors influence the perception of facial expressions as categorical and/or dimensional signals.…”

“… 10 ), to control for the potential effects of other-ethnicity perception. 91 For the valence and arousal dimensional rating task, we generated a further 2400 random facial expressions and displayed each on the same face identities used in the emotion categorization task. For each participant, we randomly split the stimuli into two sets of 1200 facial expressions and assigned each stimulus set to one of the two rating tasks of valence and arousal.…”

“…In both rating tasks, we included face identities of the same ethnicity as participants (white) to control for the potential effects of other-ethnicity perception. 91 Future work will examine whether and how the perceiver’s culture and the ethnicity of the face stimuli each influence the perception of facial expressions as categorical and/or dimensional signals. In experiments and tasks, we displayed all facial expression stimuli in the center of the participant’s visual field, on a black background, and on a 19-inch flat panel Dell monitor (Round Rock, Texas 78682, refresh rate of 60 Hz and resolution of 1024 × 1280).…”

Social Motivation: The Impact of Social Status on the Other-Race Effect

“…The other-race effect (ORE), a phenomenon in which the chance of individuals misidentifying other-race faces is signi cantly higher than misidentifying own-race faces 1,2 , is also known as the own-race bias, or the cross-race effect. Misidentifying others, especially members of different races, can cause social di culties for individuals 3 , and can even affect judicial justice 4 and ethnic relations 5 . There has always been extensive attention from researchers regarding the causes of the ORE [6][7][8] .…”