Abstract
Psychological research has consistently demonstrated that individuals are better at discriminating faces of their own race when compared with faces of another, less familiar race. Given the racial/ethnic diversity of individuals screened by security personnel at transportation and border checkpoints, it is important to understand whether the cross-race effect may play a role in simultaneous perceptual discrimination tasks that mimic such screening operations. Three experiments assessed the deleterious effects of cross-racial identification in this context. Results demonstrated greater discrimination accuracy for own- versus other-race faces, and a propensity for screeners to be overconfident in their decisions, particularly for other-race persons. Further, perceived age differences between the target and his identification photo and the use of a disguise were found to moderate cross-race effects during this task.
The first two authors contributed equally to the current manuscript. This material is based upon research supported by the US Department of Homeland Security under Award Number 2008-ST-061-BS0001. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The first two authors contributed equally to the current manuscript. This material is based upon research supported by the US Department of Homeland Security under Award Number 2008-ST-061-BS0001. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.