The Effect of Visual Experience with Other-Race Faces on Cross-Racial Facial Identification

Indianapolis, IN

The other-race effect is a robust phenomenon in which people are better at recognizing own-race faces than other-race faces. Previous research suggests that early visual experience with other-race faces can moderate this cognitive deficit. However, this research is restricted to experience gained in childhood and little is known about whether visual experiences with other-race faces gained after adolescence are as effective as those gained before adolescence. To assess the effect of visual experiences with other-race faces, I recruited Chinese adults who had different levels of visual experience with other-race faces gained after adolescence to take an online cross-racial identification test. I hypothesize that participants who have more other-race visual experience after adolescence will perform better than participants with less other-race visual experience.