Holistic processing is finely tuned for faces of one's own race
(2006) Psychological Science — Vol. 17, n° 7, p. 608-615 (2006)
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- Recognizing individual faces outside one's race poses difficulty, a phenomenon known as the other-race effect. Most researchers agree that this effect results from differential experience with same-race (SR) and other-race (OR) faces. However, the specific processes that develop with visual experience and underlie the other-race effect remain to be clarified. We tested whether the integration of facial features into a whole representation-holistic processing-was larger for SR than OR faces in Caucasians and Asians without life experience with OR faces. For both classes of participants, recognition of the upper half of a composite-face stimulus was more disrupted by the bottom half (the composite-face effect) for SR than OR faces, demonstrating that SR faces are processed more holistically than OR faces. This differential holistic processing for faces of different races, probably a by-product of visual experience, may be a critical factor in the other-race effect.
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Michel, C., Rossion, B., Han, J., Chung, C.-S., & Caldara, R. (2006). Holistic processing is finely tuned for faces of one’s own race. Psychological Science, 17(7), 608-615. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01752.x (Original work published 2006)