Perceptual identification and the cross-race effect

Abstract

The current research examined whether the cross-race effect (CRE) was evident in perceptual identification tasks and the extent to which certain boundary conditions moderated the effect. Across two experiments, a significant CRE was observed in measures of accuracy and response latency. As predicted, Experiment 1 showed that the CRE was exacerbated when encoding time was brief and test set size was increased. Experiment 2 replicated the effect of set size, but also showed that the CRE was more pronounced when the retention interval was lengthened. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Keywords:

• Cross-race effect
• Perceptual identification
• Visual search
• Face identification
• Working memory

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a National Science Foundation grant (SES-0611636) to CAM. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Notes

¹Effect size for within-subject comparisons involving race of face were computed using Dunlap, Cortina, Vaslow, and Burke's (1996) formula for computing d with correlated designs (Equation 3, p. 171), with d = t _C [2 (1—r) / n]^1/2. The correlation between performance on Hispanic and Black faces (r _HB) is also provided.