Poorer recognition of other-race faces than own-races faces has been attributed to a problem of discrimination (i.e., telling faces apart). The conclusion that 'they all look the same to me' is based on studies measuring the perception/memory of highly controlled stimuli, typically involving only one or two images of each identity. We hypothesized that such studies underestimate the challenge involved in recognizing other-race faces because in the real world, an individual's appearance varies in a number of ways (e.g., lighting, expression, hairstyle), reducing the utility of relying on pictorial cues to identity. In two experiments, Caucasian and East Asian participants completed a perceptual sorting task in which they were asked to sort 40 photographs of two unfamiliar identities into piles such that each pile contained all photographs of a single identity. Participants perceived more identities when sorting other-race faces than own-race faces, both when sorting celebrity (Experiment 1) and non-celebrity (Experiment 2) faces, suggesting that in the real world, 'they all look different to me'. We discuss these results in the light of models in which each identity is represented as a region in a multidimensional face space; we argue that this region is smaller for other-race than own-race faces.

We investigated recognition of familiar and unfamiliar own- and other-race faces across natural variability in appearance. Participants sorted 20 photographs of each of two identities into piles such that each pile contained all photographs of a single identity. The other-race effect was limited to unfamiliar faces. When faces were unfamiliar, participants perceived more identities when sorting other-race races; when faces were familiar, participants made two piles for both own- and other-race faces. Our work calls for rethinking the concept of the other-race effect.

Adults show impaired recognition of other-race compared to own-race faces. This other-race effect (ORE) is suggested to be the result of asymmetrical perceptual experience with own-and other-race faces during development. However, it is unclear whether the impact of experience on adults' ORE differs across development, and whether experience during adulthood can exert similar effects as experience during development. To investigate these questions, we tested face recognition in White adults, East Asian (EA) adults born and raised in Canada, and EA adults who immigrated to Canada at different ages from infancy to adulthood. When recognizing upright faces, White adults and EA immigrants demonstrated a reliable ORE, whereas EA adults born in Canada showed no ORE. These effects were not present when recognizing inverted faces. Notably, age of arrival positively predicts the magnitude of the ORE. Our study highlights the influence of early experience on the ORE and suggests that the ORE appears relatively unmalleable during adolescence and adulthood.

Artemisia selengenesis is not only a health food, but also a well-known traditional Chinese medicine. Only a fraction of the chloroplast (cp) genome data of Artemisia has been reported and chloroplast genomic materials have been widely used in genomic evolution studies, molecular marker development, and phylogenetic analysis of the genus Artemisia, which makes evolutionary studies, genetic improvement, and phylogenetic identification very difficult. In this study, the complete chloroplast genome of A. selengensis was compared with that of other species within Artemisia and phylogenetic analyses was conducted with other genera in the Asteraceae family. The results showed that A. selengensis is an AT-rich species and has a typical quadripartite structure that is 151,215 bp in length. Comparative genome analyses demonstrated that the available chloroplast genomes of species of Artemisia were well conserved in terms of genomic length, GC contents, and gene organization and order. However, some differences, which may indicate evolutionary events, were found, such as a re-inversion event within the Artemisia genus, an unequal duplicate phenomenon of the ycf1 gene because of the expansion and contraction of the IR region, and the fast-evolving regions. Repeated sequences analysis showed that Artemisia chloroplast genomes presented a highly similar pattern of SSR or LDR distribution. A total of 257 SSRs and 42 LDRs were identified in the A. selengensis chloroplast genome. The phylogenetic analysis showed that A. selengensis was sister to A. gmelinii. The findings of this study will be valuable in further studies to understand the genetic diversity and evolutionary history of Asteraceae.