Rhodes Gillian, Ewing Louise, Hayward William G, Maurer Daphne, Mondloch Catherine J, Tanaka James W
University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
Br J Psychol. 2009 Nov;100(Pt 4):717-28. doi: 10.1348/000712608X396503. Epub 2009 Feb 18.
Other-race faces are generally recognized more poorly than own-race faces. There has been a long-standing interest in the extent to which differences in contact contribute to this other-race effect (ORE). Here, we examined the effect of contact on two distinct aspects of face memory, memory for configuration and for components, both of which are better for own-race than other-race faces. Configural and component memory were measured using recognition memory tests with intact study faces and blurred (isolates memory for configuration) and scrambled (isolates memory for components) test faces, respectively. Our participants were a large group of ethnically Chinese individuals who had resided in Australia for varying lengths of time, from a few weeks to 26 years. We found that time in a Western country significantly (negatively) predicted the size of the ORE for configural, but not component, memory. There was also a trend for earlier age of arrival to predict smaller OREs in configural, but not component, memory. These results suggest that memory for configural information in other-race faces improves with experience with such faces. However, as found for recognition memory generally, the contact effects were small, indicating that other factors must play a substantial role in cross-race differences in face memory.
通常，识别其他种族面孔的能力比识别本族面孔的能力差。长期以来，人们一直关注接触差异在多大程度上导致了这种异族效应（ORE）。在此，我们研究了接触对面孔记忆两个不同方面的影响，即对面孔构型的记忆和对面孔组成部分的记忆，这两方面的记忆对本族面孔都比对其他种族面孔更好。构型记忆和组成部分记忆分别通过识别记忆测试来测量，测试中，学习面孔保持完整，而测试面孔分别经过模糊处理（用于分离构型记忆）和打乱处理（用于分离组成部分记忆）。我们的参与者是一大群华裔人士，他们在澳大利亚居住的时间长短不一，从几周至26年不等。我们发现，在西方国家居住的时间显著（负向）预测了构型记忆方面的异族效应大小，但对组成部分记忆则无此影响。在构型记忆方面，还有一种趋势，即较早到达西方国家预示着异族效应较小，但对组成部分记忆则无此影响。这些结果表明，对其他种族面孔构型信息的记忆会随着对这类面孔的接触经验而改善。然而，正如一般在识别记忆中所发现的那样，接触效应很小，这表明其他因素在面孔记忆的跨种族差异中必定起着重要作用。
