Reducing the own-race bias in face recognition by attentional shift using fixation crosses preceding the lower half of a face

Authors: Hills, P.J. and Lewis, M.B.

Journal: Visual Cognition

Volume: 19

Issue: 3

Pages: 313-339

eISSN: 1464-0716

ISSN: 1350-6285

DOI: 10.1080/13506285.2010.528250

Abstract:

Hills and Lewis (2006) reduced White participants' own-race bias (ORB) in face recognition by training them to attend to features critical for Black faces (lower portion of the face). Here, the ORB was investigated following a brief fixation cross either in the upper portion of the face (critical for White faces) or the lower portion of the face. Results showed that when the cross preceded the lower portion of the face, Black faces were recognized more accurately than White faces and vice versa when it preceded the upper portion of the face. A second experiment demonstrated that this effect disappears if the participants are forced to delay their responses by 4 s. These results suggest that an immediate attentional mechanism can attenuate the ORB when immediate attention is paid to diagnostic features but this can be overridden with increased time spent viewing faces. © 2010 Psychology Press.

Source: Scopus