| Faces are complex visual stimuli. Recognition of faces is one of the highly expert cognitive skills of the human brain. However, people recognize other race faces worse than own race faces. For example, Asian participants can recognize Asian faces better, but they can’t recognize Caucasian faces well; similarly, Caucasian participants can recognize Caucasian faces better, but they can’t recognize Asian faces well. This phenomenon is called “the other-race effect”.We studied the other-race effect in the laboratory, the participants were Chinese university students, and we adopted behavioral measures, systematic training and eye-movement method and technique, and we had two studies:In study1 we selected 63 subjects, and used the classic method of old/new task to measure the recognition(including study and test phases) performance of own race(Asian) and other race(Caucasian) faces, and used the eye tracker to record the participants’ eye-movement fixations at the same time. The result showed that:(1) In test phase, participants showed better performance of own race faces than other race faces, and the fixation duration of eye region of own race faces was smaller than other race faces;(2) In both of study and test phases, participants’ fixations on own race faces were inclined left and upper than the other race faces; the discrete degree of y-axis of own race faces fixations was smaller than the other race faces; the fixation count and fixation duration of internal features of own race faces was bigger than the other race faces; the fixation count and fixation duration of nose and mouth of own race faces were bigger than other race faces.In study2 we used training to improve the recognition performance of other race faces to eliminate the other race effect, and tested what have changed after training on the eye movement patterns of other race faces. We adopted two groups of participants, the control group and the training group. There were 31 participants in the control group and 29 participants in the training group. Participants of the control group only attended in before-training and after-training tests, and the task of the two tests were old/new tasks; participants of the training group started training on the day after the before-training test, which lasted for 9 days, and after the training finished, participants of the training group attended in the after-training test. The results showed that:(1) There were no significant differences between the control and the training group for both own and other face recognition ability, and participants of the two groups showed better performance of own race faces than other race faces, or they showed the other race effect;(2) The control group showed no significant improvement after training but the recognition ability of own and other race faces were improved, and the other race effect was eliminated of the training group;(3) Analysis of the training showed that the accuracy was increased and the correct reaction time was decreased through the training, and they achieved stability on the 6th day, which showed the effectiveness of training again;(4) In study phase, fixations of internal features of the other race faces were increased after training, and in test phase, fixation of both own and other race faces moved up, the discrete degree of x-axis of fixations was reduced; fixation count of the right face of own and other races was declined; fixation count and fixation duration on the eye region of own and other races was reduced, and fixation count on the mouth of own face was increased.In conclusion, the two studies showed that the fixations on own race faces were more concentrated of Asian participants, they can catch the diagnostic features quickly, which were left face, nose and mouth. Our study revealed that the process of face recognition should be highlighted in other-race effect studies, especially the distribution of fixations, which means a lot to improve and further face researches. |
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