Kloth Nadine, Shields Susannah E, Rhodes Gillian
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, School of Psychology, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia; DFG Research Unit Person Perception, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Jena, Germany.
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, School of Psychology, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia.
PLoS One. 2014 Sep 2;9(9):e105979. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0105979. eCollection 2014.
The term "own-race bias" refers to the phenomenon that humans are typically better at recognizing faces from their own than a different race. The perceptual expertise account assumes that our face perception system has adapted to the faces we are typically exposed to, equipping it poorly for the processing of other-race faces. Sociocognitive theories assume that other-race faces are initially categorized as out-group, decreasing motivation to individuate them. Supporting sociocognitive accounts, a recent study has reported improved recognition for other-race faces when these were categorized as belonging to the participants' in-group on a second social dimension, i.e., their university affiliation. Faces were studied in groups, containing both own-race and other-race faces, half of each labeled as in-group and out-group, respectively. When study faces were spatially grouped by race, participants showed a clear own-race bias. When faces were grouped by university affiliation, recognition of other-race faces from the social in-group was indistinguishable from own-race face recognition. The present study aimed at extending this singular finding to other races of faces and participants. Forty Asian and 40 European Australian participants studied Asian and European faces for a recognition test. Faces were presented in groups, containing an equal number of own-university and other-university Asian and European faces. Between participants, faces were grouped either according to race or university affiliation. Eye tracking was used to study the distribution of spatial attention to individual faces in the display. The race of the study faces significantly affected participants' memory, with better recognition of own-race than other-race faces. However, memory was unaffected by the university affiliation of the faces and by the criterion for their spatial grouping on the display. Eye tracking revealed strong looking biases towards both own-race and own-university faces. Results are discussed in light of the theoretical accounts of the own-race bias.
术语“同种族偏见”指的是这样一种现象：人类通常更擅长识别同种族的面孔，而非其他种族的面孔。感知专业知识理论认为，我们的面部感知系统已经适应了我们通常接触到的面孔，因此在处理其他种族面孔时能力较差。社会认知理论则认为，其他种族的面孔最初会被归类为外群体，从而降低了对其进行个体化识别的动机。一项近期研究支持了社会认知理论，该研究报告称，当其他种族的面孔在第二个社会维度（即参与者的大学所属关系）上被归类为参与者的内群体时，对这些面孔的识别能力有所提高。研究的面孔被分组呈现，每组包含同种族和其他种族的面孔，其中每种面孔的一半分别被标记为内群体和外群体。当研究面孔按种族进行空间分组时，参与者表现出明显的同种族偏见。当面孔按大学所属关系分组时，对来自社会内群体的其他种族面孔的识别与对同种族面孔的识别没有差异。本研究旨在将这一独特发现扩展到其他种族的面孔和参与者身上。40名亚洲参与者和40名澳大利亚欧洲裔参与者研究亚洲面孔和欧洲面孔，以便进行识别测试。面孔以组的形式呈现，每组包含数量相等的来自自己大学和其他大学的亚洲面孔和欧洲面孔。在参与者之间，面孔要么根据种族分组，要么根据大学所属关系分组。使用眼动追踪技术来研究对显示屏上各个面孔的空间注意力分布。研究面孔的种族显著影响了参与者的记忆，对同种族面孔的识别比对其他种族面孔的识别更好。然而，面孔的大学所属关系以及显示屏上其空间分组的标准对记忆没有影响。眼动追踪显示，对同种族面孔和自己大学的面孔都存在强烈的注视偏向。研究结果将根据同种族偏见的理论解释进行讨论。
