Processing Method Of Other-race Effect: The Behavioral And Electrophysiological Study

More and more attention has been paid to the research of other-race effect, although in thestability of the other-race effect has been drawn relatively consistent conclusions from thisresearch field, there has been still no consistent conclusions in processing method of other-raceeffect. We employ three different ethnic faces (Africa, Europe and Asia) as stimulus materials toreplace only two ethnic groups as the stimulus materials in the previous studies. So we aim toexamine whether there are differences among these three types of face processing method andthe neural mechanisms.In the first experiment, we utilize the complete composite-face paradigm to compare theperformance in the three different types of face recognition, and we have a preliminarydiscussion for the three different types of face processing method. The reason why we employthe complete composite-face paradigm is not only because it controls for response bias, but alsobecause performance on the complete paradigm correlates with face recognition performance.The results suggest that for the same-race faces, subjects show the stability of other-race effect.This indicates that same-race faces involved more configural/holistic processing, and other-racefaces contained more featural processing.In the second experiment, we utilize a race categorization task and event-related potentialstechnique to ask for subjects to identify as fast and correctly as possible whether face stimulibelonged to their own race or not in upright and inverted orientations. The results show that forthe upright orientation, the peak N170amplitude is lowest for same-race faces. And inversioneffects were significant for all racial groups. Same-race faces have more inversion effects thanother-race faces. In addition, there is a right hemisphere superiority of N170for all racial groups.This suggests that although there are certain degrees of configuration processing for all racialgroups, same-race faces involved more configural/holistic processing, and other-race facescontained more featural processing.The current study is compatible with a perceptual expertise account of the ORE, that is,differential experiences with SR and OR faces influence the way faces are processing method.We also find that there are different degrees of processing between Asian and European subjectsfor other race faces, that is, when Asian individuals process other race faces, there are certaindegrees of configuration processing involved. At the same time, we also We also cannot ignorevisual experience for the influence of other-race effect. We add the African faces to thesestimulus materials, thereby extending previous studies in configural/holistic processing. All in all, this study demonstrates that there is the stability of other-race effect between individuals. Andwhat’s more, same-race faces involved more configural/holistic processing, and other-race facescontained more featural processing.