Reversibility of the Other-Race Effect in Face Recognition During Childhood

By S. Sangrigoli, Christophe Pallier, A. Argenti, V. Ventureyra, S. de Schonen. 2005

426 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Early experience with faces of a given racial type facilitates visual recognition for this type of face relative to others. To assess whether this so-called other-race effect can be reversed by subsequent experience with new types of faces, we tested adults of Korean origin who were adopted by European Caucasian families when they were between the ages of 3 to 9. The adoptees performed a face recognition task with photographs of Caucasian and Asian faces. They performed exactly like a control group of French participants, identifying the Caucasian faces better than the Asiatic ones. In contrast, a control group of Koreans showed the reverse pattern. This result indicates that the face recognition system remains plastic enough during childhood to reverse the other-race effect.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

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Citations in the corpus

On the epistemic costs of implicit bias (2011, background): “See, for example, Hodson et al. (2005) (a study of aversive racism outside the US); Sangrigoli et al. (2005) (a study of cross-race face identification in Europe); Tanaka et al. 2004 (a cross-cultural study of cross-race face identification); and Dunham et al. (2006) (a study exploring implicit…”
First Impressions From Faces Among U.S. and Culturally Isolated Tsimane’ People in the Bolivian Rainforest (2012, result): “This result is consistent with the argument that experience with a particular group of faces may better attune perceivers to the structural variations that provide trait cues just as it better attunes them to identity cues (Furl et al., 2002; Sangrigoli et al., 2005).”
The Development of the Uncanny Valley in Infants (2011, background): “…of the first year of life, is interesting because infants of this age have already become sufficiently specialized for human faces that they no longer discriminate the faces of other-species (Pascalis et al., 2002) and of other races (Bar-Haim, Ziv, Lamy, & Hodes, 2006; Sangrigoli et al., 2005).”
Individuation Motivation and Face Experience Can Operate Jointly to Produce the Own-Race Bias (2012, background): “Similarly, extended exposure to racial out-groups can also improve CR recognition (Sangrigoli et al., 2005).”
The Other-Race Effect Develops During Infancy (2007, background): “, 2002), whereas the ORE is evidently modifiable through exposure to other-race populations (Sangrigoli et al., 2005) or simple training with other-race faces (Elliott, Wills, & Goldstein, 1973; Goldstein & Chance, 1985; Lavrakas, Buri, & Mayzner, 1976).”
The fusiform face area: a cortical region specialized for the perception of faces (2006, background): “2001) are higher for faces of a familiar than an unfamiliar race, even if the relevant experience occurs after age 3 (Sangrigoli et al. 2005).”
Perceptual learning: 12-month-olds' discrimination of monkey faces. (2012, background): “Moreover, the facial discrimination of the adoptees did not differ from the native French adults but did differ from native Koreans who moved to France as adults (Sangrigoli et al., 2005).”