Emily Martin¹ (), Fabian Soto¹; ¹Florida International University

Other-race effects in face perception are well-documented and extensively studied in the literature. Specifically, the other-race recognition disadvantage (ORRD) involves a reduction in face recognition memory for races different from the perceiver’s compared to the own-race, while the other-race categorization advantage (ORCA) involves faster and more accurate classification of other-race faces than own-race faces. These effects could stem from reliance on features that distinguish the two races (race-specific) or on features that distinguish individuals within each race (identity-specific) and that differ between the two races (race-idiosyncratic). Using three-dimensional face modeling, we generated faces in which identity-specific information was held constant across races (i.e., individuals differed from one another in the exact same ways in both races), but race-specific information was included and implemented as anthropometrically-validated three-dimensional race morphs. Controlling for self-reported other-race contact, we presented participants with our novel stimuli using both the ORRD and ORCA tasks. We find that our stimulus manipulation eliminated the ORRD but preserved the ORCA, suggesting that different mechanisms may underlie the two effects. Considering that identity-specific information was held constant across races while race-specific information was not, our results suggest the ORRD may result from a sensitivity to features that distinguish individuals in the own-race but not the other-race, while the ORCA may result from a sensitivity to race-specific features.

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation.