Mixed Race Studies

Holistic processing for own-, other- and mixed-race faces is modulated by awareness of race category

Journal of Vision
Volume 11, Number 11 (September 23, 2011)
Article 670
DOI: 10.1167/11.11.670

Rachel Robbins, Research Lecturer
University of Western Sydney
Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Macquarie University

Dilan Perera
Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Macquarie University

People are worse at recognising, and show less holistic integration, for other-race faces. Debate continues on how much this is based on perceptual experience versus other factors such as motivation to individuate members of another race. Here we tested integration, using the part-whole task, and racial classification for four faces types matched on basic skin tone: white faces with white features, black faces with black features, white faces with black features and black faces with white features. Task order was manipulated between participants, with both Caucasians and Non-Caucasians tested. If experience is the key factor, integration should be stronger for more experienced faces, regardless of task order (WW>BB>WB = BW, both groups). If motivation or awareness of race is key, then task order should influence the results such that completing the categorisation task first leads to more integration for faces more like one’s in-group (C: WW>WB>BW>BB; Non-C: WW = WB = BW = BB). Race categorisation in mixed-race faces was most affected by changes to the eyes for both Caucasian and non-Caucasian participants. Caucasian participants who completed the part-whole task first showed significant advantages for wholes over parts for all four faces types. However, Caucasian participants who completed the race categorisation task first showed a significant part-whole effect only for black faces with white features, with reduced accuracy on most whole conditions. Non-Caucasian participants showed an overall similar pattern of results, although those who did the part-whole task first only showed significant part-whole effects for black faces with black features and black faces with white features. Caucasian and non-Caucasian groups were closely matched on experience with black faces, but Caucasian participants had higher levels of experience with white faces. This experiment suggests that experience and awareness of race both affect the level of holistic processing for faces, but awareness of race has more influence on integration.

Race-specific norms for coding face identity and a functional role for norms

Journal of Vision
Volume 10, Number 7, Article 706 (2010-08-02)
doi: 10.1167/10.7.706

Regine Armann
Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Germany

Linda Jeffery
School of Psychology, The University of Western Australia, Australia

Andrew J. Calder
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, UK

Isabelle Bülthoff
Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Germany

Gillian Rhodes
School of Psychology, The University of Western Australia, Australia

High-level perceptual aftereffects have revealed that faces are coded relative to norms that are dynamically updated by experience. The nature of these norms and the advantage of such a norm-based representation, however, are not yet fully understood. Here, we used adaptation techniques to get insight into the perception of faces of different race categories. We measured identity aftereffects for adapt-test pairs that were opposite a race-specific average and pairs that were opposite a ‘generic’ average, made by morphing together Asian and Caucasian faces. Aftereffects were larger following exposure to anti-faces that were created relative to the race-specific (Asian and Caucasian) averages than to anti-faces created using the mixed-race average. Since adapt-test pairs that lie opposite to each other in face space generate larger identity aftereffects than non-opposite test pairs, these results suggest that Asian and Caucasian faces are coded using race-specific norms. We also found that identification thresholds were lower when targets were distributed around the race-specific norms than around the mixed-race norm, which is also consistent with a functional role for race-specific norms.