Deficits in cross-race face learning: Insights from eye movements and pupillometry.

Abstract

The own-race bias (ORB) is a well-known finding wherein people are better able to recognize and discriminate own-race faces, relative to cross-race faces. In 2 experiments, participants viewed Asian and Caucasian faces, in preparation for recognition memory tests, while their eye movements and pupil diameters were continuously monitored. In Experiment 1 (with Caucasian participants), systematic differences emerged in both measures as a function of depicted race: While encoding cross-race faces, participants made fewer (and longer) fixations, they preferentially attended to different sets of features, and their pupils were more dilated, all relative to own-race faces. Also, in both measures, a pattern emerged wherein some participants reduced their apparent encoding effort to cross-race faces over trials. In Experiment 2 (with Asian participants), the authors observed the same patterns, although the ORB favored the opposite set of faces. Taken together, the results suggest that the ORB appears during initial perceptual encoding. Relative to own-race face encoding, cross-race encoding requires greater effort, which may reduce vigilance in some participants.

An eye for the I: Preferential attention to the eyes of ingroup members.

“…Although the former work has provided us with important information about the trajectory of distinct psychological processes related to social categories and about early automatic attentional biases toward outgroup members, because the present research focused on preferential attention to the eyes, we chose to analyze gaze patterns to ingroup and outgroup faces over a more extended period of time. This emphasis allowed us to better compare the present results with previous cognitive research on attention to specific facial features in target groups (Goldinger et al, 2009;Nakabayashi et al, 2012;Wu et al, 2012).Because of the potential importance of attention to the eyes to understanding social cognitions in an intergroup context (Adams et al, 2010;Mason et al, 2004;Niedenthal et al, 2010), we …”

“…Whereas previous research has focused on the impact of more cognitive variables such as verbalization and effort on eye gaze (Goldinger et al, 2009;Nakabayashi et al, 2012), we investigated the impact of the goal to individuate outgroup members. Fiske and Neuberg (1990), in their classic paper on impression formation, describe a model in which people initially form impressions of others on the basis of physical features and immediately noticeable characteristics that cue a specific category.…”

“…Once the calibration was manually accepted by the experimenter, participants were required to fixate on a cross () in the middle of the screen for 1000 ms. Whereas the presentation times of single faces in similar paradigms have ranged from 2000 ms (Nakabayashi et al, 2012) to 5000 ms (Wu et al, 2012) to 10000 ms (Goldinger et al, (2009), participants in the present study were presented with a pair of face images for 5000 ms followed by an intertrial interval which ranged up to 500 ms (the average length of the intertrial interval was 262 ms, SD = 154). Notably, Goldinger and his colleagues (2009) found that varying target presentation times from 5000 ms to 10000 ms did not influence fixations for facial features.…”

“…The sample sizes of previous studies investigating visual attention to ingroup and outgroup eyes have ranged from 12-14 per cell (Blais et al, 2008;Nakabayashi et al, 2012) to 18-20 per cell (Goldinger et al, 2009) to 43 per cell (Wu et al, 2012 Figure 1) was set within a restricted range (136.20 to 146.96 pixels per intensity level).…”

“…By including two sets of distinct target groups, this strategy allowed us to investigate more general processes related to intergroup face perception and a preference for ingroup over outgroup eyes. We expected that White participants would attend more to the eyes of White and experimentally created ingroup faces than Black and outgroup faces.Notably, whereas previous social psychological research on whole face processing related to ingroups and outgroups has investigated the time course of general vigilance-and avoidance-based visual patterns (Amodio et al, 2003;Bean et al, 2012;, previous cognitive studies on processing of specific facial features has tended to examine visual preference over a more extended period of time (Goldinger et al, 2009;Nakabayashi et al, 2012;Wu et al, 2012). Although the former work has provided us with important information about the trajectory of distinct psychological processes related to social categories and about early automatic attentional biases toward outgroup members, because the present research focused on preferential attention to the eyes, we chose to analyze gaze patterns to ingroup and outgroup faces over a more extended period of time.…”