Putting culture under the spotlight reveals universal information use for face recognition

Background: Eye movement strategies employed by humans to identify conspecifics are not universal. Westerners predominantly fixate the eyes during face recognition, whereas Easterners more the nose region, yet recognition accuracy is comparable. However, natural fixations do not unequivocally represent information extraction. So the question of whether humans universally use identical facial information to recognize faces remains unresolved. Methodology/Principal Findings: We monitored eye movements during face recognition of Western Caucasian (WC) and East Asian (EA) observers with a novel technique in face recognition that parametrically restricts information outside central vision. We used ‘Spotlights’ with Gaussian apertures of 2°, 5° or 8° dynamically centered on observers’ fixations. Strikingly, in constrained Spotlight conditions (2°, 5°) observers of both cultures actively fixated the same facial information: the eyes and mouth. When information from both eyes and mouth was simultaneously available when fixating the nose (8°), as expected EA observers shifted their fixations towards this region. Conclusions/Significance: Social experience and cultural factors shape the strategies used to extract information from faces, but these results suggest that external forces do not modulate information use. Human beings rely on identical facial information to recognize conspecifics, a universal law that might be dictated by the evolutionary constraints of nature and not nurture

Visual scanning and recognition of Chinese, Caucasian, and racially ambiguous faces: Contributions from bottom-up facial physiognomic information and top-down knowledge of racial categories

AbstractRecent studies have shown that participants use different eye movement strategies when scanning own- and other-race faces. However, it is unclear (1) whether this effect is related to face recognition performance, and (2) to what extent this effect is influenced by top-down or bottom-up facial information. In the present study, Chinese participants performed a face recognition task with Chinese, Caucasian, and racially ambiguous faces. For the racially ambiguous faces, we led participants to believe that they were viewing either own-race Chinese faces or other-race Caucasian faces. Results showed that (1) Chinese participants scanned the nose of the true Chinese faces more than that of the true Caucasian faces, whereas they scanned the eyes of the Caucasian faces more than those of the Chinese faces; (2) they scanned the eyes, nose, and mouth equally for the ambiguous faces in the Chinese condition compared with those in the Caucasian condition; (3) when recognizing the true Chinese target faces, but not the true target Caucasian faces, the greater the fixation proportion on the nose, the faster the participants correctly recognized these faces. The same was true when racially ambiguous face stimuli were thought to be Chinese faces. These results provide the first evidence to show that (1) visual scanning patterns of faces are related to own-race face recognition response time, and (2) it is bottom-up facial physiognomic information that mainly contributes to face scanning. However, top-down knowledge of racial categories can influence the relationship between face scanning patterns and recognition response time

Cross-race correlations in the abilities to match unfamiliar faces

The other-race effect in face identification has been documented widely in memory tasks, but it persists also in identity-matching tasks, in which memory contributions are minimized. Whereas this points to a perceptual locus for this effect, it remains unresolved whether matching performance with same- and other-race faces is driven by shared cognitive mechanisms. To examine this question, this study compared Arab and Caucasian observers’ ability to match faces of their own race with their ability to match faces of another race using one-to-one (Experiment 1) and one-to-many (Experiment 2) identification tasks. Across both experiments, Arab and Caucasian observers demonstrated reliable other-race effects at a group level. At an individual level, substantial variation in accuracy was found, but performance with same-race and other-race faces correlated consistently and strongly. This indicates that the abilities to match same- and other-race faces share a common cognitive mechanism

The other race effect in perception and recognition: Insights from the complete composite task

This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.People are more accurate at recognizing faces of their own race than faces from other races, a phenomenon known as the other-race effect. Other-race effects have also been reported in some perceptual tasks. Across 3 experiments, White and Chinese participants completed recognition tests as well as the complete paradigm of the composite task, which measures participants’ abilities to selectively attend to the target region of a face while ignoring the task-irrelevant region of the face. Each task was completed with both own- and other-race faces. At a group level, participants showed significant own-race effects in recognition, but not in the composite task. At an individual difference level, the results provided no support for the hypothesis that a deficit in holistic processing for other-race faces drives the other-race effect in recognition. We therefore conclude that the other-race effect in recognition is not driven by the processes that underpin the composite effect.Australian Research Counci

Could Dehumanization Be Perceptual?

A large part of the contemporary literature on dehumanization is committed to three ideas: (a) dehumanization involves some degree of denial of humanness, (b) such denial is to be comprehended in mental terms, and (c) whatever exact mechanisms underlie the denial of humanness, they belong in the realm of post-perceptual processing. This chapter examines (c) and argues that the awareness of minds might belong to perceptual processing. This paves the way for the possibility that dehumanization might, at least in part, be a perceptual phenomenon, such that dehumanizers visually perceive the dehumanized as exhibiting lesser-than-human minds. It is perhaps unsurprising that the first systematic investigations of dehumanization approached the phenomenon as linked to contexts of war, genocide, extreme hatred, and violence. One guiding hypothesis was that dehumanizers exclude the dehumanized from a moral community of human beings, implicitly conceptualized as displaying distinct individualities and being embedded in caring interpersonal relations. By comprehending the dehumanized as deindividuated entities to which moral norms and considerations of fairness do not apply (Opotow 1990), dehumanizers are able to disengage from moral restrictions and self-sanctions (Bandura 1999)

Exploring the contribution of motivation and experience in the post-pubescent own-gender bias in face recognition

The own-gender bias in face recognition has been hypothesised to be the result of extensive experience with own-gender faces, coupled with a motivation to process own-group faces more deeply than other-group faces. We test the effect of experience and motivation in four experiments employing standard old/new recognition paradigms. In Experiment 1, no own-gender recognition bias was observed following an attractiveness-rating encoding task regardless of school type (single- or mixed-sex). Experiment 2, which used a distinctiveness-rating encoding task, did find a significant own-gender bias for all groups of participants. Experiment 3 on adults found that the own-gender bias was not affected by self-reported contact with the other-gender, but the encoding task did moderate the size of the bias. Experiment 4 revealed that participants with an own-gender sexual orientation showed a stronger own-gender bias. These results indicate that motivational factors influence the own-gender bias whereas no evidence was found for perceptual experience

Facial image manipulation : A tool for investigating social perception

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders (CE110001021), an ARC Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award to Rhodes (DP130102300), and an ARC Discovery grant to Rhodes, Sutherland, and Young (DP170104602).Peer reviewedPostprin

Metamemory for faces : self-other awareness of typicality and race effects

Tese de mestrado, Psicologia (Área de Especialização em Cognição Social Aplicada), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Psicologia, 2020The Own-race bias (ORB) – the tendency to recognize own-race faces better than other-race faces – has been widely scrutinized and replicated across multiple studies. Recently, some have tried to link metamemory to the ORB, realizing that it also occurs when a person attempts to predict their future memory. Specifically, this thesis strives to further investigate how accurate a person is about their future recognition performance of own and other-race faces and whether typicality – a face being atypical or typical – affects the ORB and participants’ metamemorial predictions. In addition, we also tried to understand if people are aware of these effects when making predictions for others and themselves. Using a standard recognition paradigm and JOL’s (judgment of learning) to assess participants’ future recognition with Caucasian participants, our results replicated the ORB and an effect of typicality was found, exposing the fact that people tend to better discriminate atypical faces than typical ones, due to the salience of face features. No differences were found in relative metamnemonic accuracy, nevertheless, people predicted their future memory performance above chance level. Importantly, we found that people are aware of these effects and, this awareness is grounded in a well-adjusted naïve theory about the functioning of memory. This awareness was established not only for themselves but for others. Limitations and proposals for future studies are discussed.A investigação relativa ao reconhecimento de faces tem mostrado que o sistema visual humano é particularmente proficiente no anterior em diversos contextos e domínios. Apesar desta aparente adequação, a discussão sobre quais os mecanismos e processos que são fundamentais para o reconhecimento de faces tem sido dinâmica. Especificamente, estudos mostram que percecionamos faces de forma holística e que, desta forma, torna-se mais fácil extrair características destas mesmas. Ao mesmo tempo, a existência de uma área cerebral dedicada ao processamento de faces indica que estes estímulos são especiais e, além disso, permitem-nos extrair e inferir uma grande quantidade de informação social (e.g., raça, idade, género) que é importante para o ser humano operar nos contextos em que se insere. Globalmente, os indivíduos afiguram-se como experts no reconhecimento de faces; contudo, os efeitos de pertença grupal têm sistematicamente mostrado que existe um “embora” na expertise relativa ao reconhecimento de faces. O own-race bias (ORB) é um dos exemplos mais robusto e estudado dos efeitos acima mencionados, tendo sido aplicado em contextos experimentais e ecologicamente válidos. De forma sintética, o ORB revela que os indivíduos são melhores a reconhecer faces da sua própria raça e cometem menos erros em relação a essas mesmas faces. As causas relativas a este fenómeno são inúmeras, podendo ser explicadas através de: expertise superior em relação a faces da própria raça; motivação intrínseca dos indivíduos relacionada com a pertença grupal em termos de raça e, ainda, pela interação dos anteriores fatores. Simultaneamente, as faces diferem tanto em termos gerais como em termos mais específicos (i.e., tipicidade, diferenças mais subtis e graduais) relativamente à categoria a que pertencem (e.g., raça). Desta forma, é expectável que estas diferenças também sejam importantes e impactantes no que concerne aos indivíduos e ao subsequente reconhecimento de faces da própria e de outra etnia. Ao mesmo tempo, a existência deste fenómeno tem sido demonstrada não só em termos de memória de reconhecimento como em julgamentos metacognitivos (i.e., em metamemória). Especificamente, os resultados relativos ao ORB em metamemória são contraditórios, sendo que alguns reportam que os indivíduos preveem a sua memória para faces com precisão (i.e., que se irão recordar melhor de faces da sua própria raça do que de outra raça), outros mostram o oposto. Desta forma, as conclusões relativas ao ORB em metamemória mostram que, por vezes, os indivíduos estão conscientes e são precisos nas suas previsões, noutras o padrão oposto sucede. Assente no supramencionado, a presente dissertação tem como objetivo explorar se os indivíduos estão conscientes deste enviesamento para faces da própria raça e dos efeitos de tipicidade, tanto para o próprio como para os outros. Concomitantemente, procurámos perceber se as pessoas são precisas nas suas previsões e se, ao mesmo tempo, capturam as diferenças de tipicidade e as projetam para a sua memória e respetivos julgamentos metacognitivos. De forma a analisar os objetivos supramencionados, três experiências foram concebidas onde utilizámos um paradigma standard de memória de reconhecimento e um plano experimental intraparticipante com 4 condições, manipulando raça (Caucasiana vs. Africana) e tipicidade (atípica vs. típica), de forma transversal, numa amostra de participantes Caucasianos. As diferenças relativamente a cada experiência são as seguintes: na Experiência 1, os participantes, para além de estudarem faces e serem testados sobre esse mesmo estudo, responderam a dois julgamentos: confiança preditiva (i.e., JOLs; predictive confidence) e confiança retroativa (i.e., postdictive confidence).; na Experiência 2, introduzimos os julgamentos preditivos em relação aos outros; finalmente, na Experiência 3, introduzimos uma condição que consistia na manipulação do Outro (Caucasiano vs. Africano), de forma a perceber em quem é que os participantes pensaram quando fizeram julgamentos de confiança preditivos. A generalidade dos resultados demonstra que os participantes atribuíram valores maiores de confiança preditiva para faces da própria raça do que para faces de outra raça, e valores maiores para faces atípicas do que típicas. Ao mesmo tempo, os participantes captaram as diferenças de tipicidade, nos julgamentos de confiança preditiva, mais para faces da própria raça do que de outra. Relativamente à precisão das estimações metacognitivas dos participantes, não encontrámos resultados significativos na globalidade das experiências; contudo, os participantes previram acima do acaso. Em termos de memória de reconhecimento, como era expectável, os participantes recordaram melhor faces da própria raça do que faces de outra raça. Concomitantemente, os participantes recordaram melhor faces atípicas do que típicas. De realçar que os resultados em relação às estimações preditivas para o outro e o próprio mostraram-se correlacionados na Experiência 2, sendo que as estimações para o outro se assemelham às estimações para o próprio. Ao mesmo tempo, os resultados obtidos na Experiência 3 demonstram que, através da manipulação do Outro, os participantes estimam valores superiores para faces Caucasianas quando o outro é caucasiano. O padrão oposto emerge quando o outro é Africano. Finalmente, os participantes estimaram valores maiores para confiança retroativa para maiores proporções de respostas corretas. Conjuntamente, estes resultados mostram que as pessoas estão conscientes dos efeitos de raça (i.e., ORB) e tipicidade. Por um lado, as pessoas aparentam basear as suas estimações numa crença de que as faces da própria raça serão por si melhor recordadas do que as faces de outra raça. Por outro lado, a fluência na codificação mnésica de faces atípicas em comparação com faces típicas parece informar os indivíduos nas suas estimações de performance futura. Desta forma, a conjunção de crenças e fluência aparenta indicar que os indivíduos possuem uma boa teoria leiga sobre o funcionamento da memória, embora não a apliquem quando são testados para tal. Adicionalmente, os resultados da Experiência 2 e 3 configuram-se como key findings nesta dissertação. Especificamente, verificámos que, apesar dos indivíduos apresentarem uma boa teoria leiga do funcionamento da memória, não são capazes de captar as diferenças de tipicidade quando o Outro é Africano, sendo apenas capazes de o fazer quando o outro é Caucasiano (i.e., congruente com a raça do participante). Uma explicação por detrás destas diferenças, pode ser edificada na dificuldade em individuar os indivíduos do out-group. De facto, os participantes adotam a noção que os indivíduos do out-group são homogéneos (i.e., não os conseguem distinguir de forma fina) e, assim, apenas os membros do próprio grupo é que são capazes de o fazer. Desta forma, as pessoas assumem que quando o Outro é Africano este será igualmente bom para faces Africanas atípicas e típicas (i.e., faces da própria raça). Ao mesmo tempo, conscientes das diferenças de tipicidade do seu próprio grupo, a diferença de tipicidade é assim mais facilmente capturada quando as faces são Caucasianas (i.e., congruente com a raça do participante). Desta forma, os indivíduos possuem uma teoria leiga do funcionamento da memória ajustada à realidade pelo menos em termos gerais. Como qualquer dissertação, a presente possui limitações que servem também o propósito de projetar estudos futuros. Especificamente, a escolha de uma amostra composta por participantes Caucasianos e Africanos seria importante de forma a conseguir obter uma análise mais transversalmente adequada e robusta aquando da manipulação da Experiência 4

What individual differences impact eyewitness identification performance?

The eyewitness’ memory of a crime is used to identify the perpetrator from a lineup. A lineup contains the police suspect (who is innocent or guilty) and fillers (people who are known to be innocent). Two kinds of performance accuracy are considered: discriminability and reliability. Discriminability is the ability to distinguish the guilty suspect from the innocent suspect. Reliability is the likelihood that the identified suspect is the perpetrator. Until now, there have been no investigations of individual factors, such as age, sex, and race, on discriminability and reliability. In this study, women vs men, young vs middle-aged vs. older adults, and different races are compared. Data from 17 published articles were analysed. In terms of discriminability, middle-aged adults outperform younger adults who outperform older adults. There were no differences between men and women. Participants who were of the same race as the suspect outperformed those whose race differed. In terms of reliability, there was a relationship between confidence and accuracy. That is, high confidence identifications were higher in accuracy than lower confidence identifications. Older adults perform worse than other two groups within medium and high confidence levels. There were no differences in reliability between men and women or across races. These results offer insights into individual differences and eyewitness identification performance to inform researchers, the police, judges, and jurors