• Corpus ID: 1102775

Racial Classification of Racially Ambiguous Faces

@inproceedings{Holguin2000RacialCO,
  title={Racial Classification of Racially Ambiguous Faces},
  author={S. Hernandez Holguin and Dawn E. McQuiston and Otto H. MacLin and Roy S. Malpass},
  year={2000}
}

• S. Holguin, Dawn E. McQuiston, +1 author R. Malpass
• Published 2000
• Psychology

The cross-race effect occurs when it is difficult for a person to correctly identify people of another race. For this experiment we examined this phenomenon by using a racial classification task with ambiguous race faces, (faces that share facial features across racial and ethnic lines), and measured the participants’ perception of the faces. Twenty (20) Hispanic UTEP participants were asked to categorize racially ambiguous faces, to rate the “raceness” of the face (how well that face fits their chosen racial category), and various facial features and personality traits. Results indicate that participants categorized the race of the face and this categorization drives the perceptual process. 1 This research was supported by grant # SBR-9730937 from the National Science Foundation. 2 Send all correspondence to: Otto H. MacLin, Criminal Justice Program, University of Texas at El Paso, 500 W. University, El Paso, TX 79968, [e-mail] Research has shown that it is more difficult for individuals to correctly identify people of another race than to identify same-race individuals (Chance & Goldstein, 1996; Malpass & Kravitz, 1969), and this cross-race effect is widely replicated in the literature (Bothwell, Brigham, & Malpass, 1989; Shapiro & Penrod; 1986). A number of theories attempt to explain the source of this bias in face recognition. First, the inherent stimulus differences hypothesis is a psychophysical explanation for the cross-race effect that emphasizes that some groups of faces are more homogeneous than other groups due to the loss of facial details with decreased reflectance from dark skin and other race-related differences (Goldstein, 1979a). However, no evidence thus far supports this hypothesis (Chance & Goldstein, 1996). Second, The contact hypothesis or the differential experience hypothesis asserts that the cross-race effect is due to a lack of contact with people of other races (Brigham & Malpass, 1985). Given minimal exposure to people of other races, it is possible that individuals do not observe the variations of other-race facial features that they recognize in own-race faces. This is an important theory given that anthropometric analyses, an anthropological procedure that measures facial characteristics and their variation among people, found that there is heterogeneity of facial characteristics of individual faces for each race (Goldstein, 1979a, 1979b). Using inverted faces, Valentine and Bruce (1985) found that participants had more difficulty recognizing inverted faces than upright faces. According to the researchers, discriminating upright faces is more familiar and socially more Racial Classification 2 important, and after the over learning of recognizing upright faces, it is not necessary to have the ability to recognize an inverted face. It is possible that given a lack of contact with other races, one does not find it socially important and/or necessary to recognize the variation in other races. The contact hypothesis may also be explained by the familiar face schema (Chance, Turner & Goldstein, 1982). When face schemas are produced, they provide expectations about certain aspects of facial features which makes their encoding and recognition automatic (Carroo, 1987). Creating a familiar-face schema makes processing of familiar faces easier and processing of unfamiliar faces difficult (Carroo, 1987). In turn, using the same schemas to discriminate other-race faces that are used to discriminate same-race faces may not be appropriate and makes recognition difficult. Third, the differential orientation hypothesis asserts that perceivers use different orienting strategies for ownand other-race faces (Chance & Goldstein, 1981). For instance, it may only be necessary to assign other-race persons to a racial category (usually done by skin color), whereas own-race persons need a more elaborate classification that involves more attention to facial detail and personality attributes (Devine & Malpass, 1985). However, Devine and Malpass found the cross-race effect to be of approximately equal magnitude among Blacks and Whites viewing Black and White faces regardless of the manipulation of orientation strategies. Last, attitudes towards other races may also play an important factor in the inability to recognize other race faces. The differential attitudes hypothesis argues that social attitudes and racial prejudices interfere with perception, producing a higher frequency of misidentifications of other race persons (Platz & Hosch, 1988). Chance, Goldstein, and Anderson (1986) attempted to test this hypothesis by measuring college students’ ability to recognize the faces of newborn infants. The majority of the participants expressed positive attitudes towards infants, yet they only had casual contact with infants. Results of this study showed that the participants were better at recognizing photos of adults than infants, but students who reported some experience with infants had a better recognition ability than those reporting none. As a result they concluded that the degree of contact appears to be the most reliable variable in predicting recognition for faces. For the present experiment, racially ambiguous facial images were created using a computerized composite system, which integrated facial features associated with Blacks and Hispanics. The images were initially created without hair to examine how the manipulation of the hairstyle (either an African-American or Hispanic style) will change one’s perception of the race, facial features, and, in turn, the personality of a racially ambiguous face. Based on this, it is predicted that participants will rate the otherrace facial images higher on the “raceness” scale than own-race faces. If participants classify the image as an other-race face, they will not have seen the facial variations that they see in own-race faces. Therefore, if they perceive the face as Black, they will classify it higher on the raceness scale than they will the Hispanic faces. It is also predicted that classifying the image into a racial category will affect how they view the facial dimensions and personality attributes. In general, studies conducted on the cross-race effect, tend to support the contact hypothesis as an explanation for the cross-race effect. These predictions are made based on studies that found that the amount of contact one has with people in the out-group improves their ability to see facial variations of other-race people. (Chance, Goldstein, & Anderson, 1986; Malpass & Kravitz, 1969; Valentine & Bruce, 1985). Racial Classification 3