Lecture 6: Own Race Bias

Question 1

what is the ORB/ OEB?

Answer 1

the finding that own-race faces are better remembered when compared with memory for faces of another, less familiar race.

Question 2

Why can the ORB be of much importance?

Answer 2

Attorneys have acknowledged the importance of racial interactions in eyewitness identifications (Brigham, 1981)

Question 3

What is it important to ensure with the ORB to know that it is valid?

Answer 3

(a) Is the effect generally replicable across studies?
(b) Is the effect consistent across various racial/ethnic groups?
(c) Is the effect significant across different types of memory tasks?
(d) Is the effect reliable across individuals and testing occasions?

Meissner and Bringham, 2001

Question 4

Is the ORB generally replicable across studies?

Answer 4

Bothwell, Brigham, and Malpass (1989) found that roughly 80% of the samples they reviewed demonstrated a significant ORB effect

Question 5

Is the effect consistent across various racial/ethnic groups?

Answer 5

Anthony et al. (1992) found that the ORB effect among White participants accounted for 2.5 times the variance than that among Black participants.

Question 6

Is the effect significant across different types of memory tasks?

Answer 6

Originally criticised as most studies documenting the ORB used a standard recognition paradigm in which participants are tested on their ability to discriminate between a subset of faces shown previously (targets) and a subset of novel faces (distractors).

But researchers responded to this criticism documenting the effect across a variety of paradigms and as Meissner and Bringham 2001 notes the effects of ORB have been found in matching tasks, lineup identification paradigms, reaction time, facial reconstruction tasks and photo line-up construction by law enforcement officers.

Question 7

Is the effect reliable across individuals and testing occasions?

Answer 7

Although it has largely been assumed that the ORB effect would follow a similar pattern of reliability across testing occasions (namely, moderate-to-large reliability estimates), little research has been available to test this assumption.

Slone et al., 2000 sought to test the reliability of the ORB effect across an immediate and (2-day) delayed testing occasion. Results indicated that although participants performed reliably on both the own-race and other-race faces, respectively, the magnitude of the difference between own-race and other-race performance was only somewhat reliable across the delay.

Thus, the issue of test-retest reliability in the ORB merits further investigation. Once again, greater care in the standardization of materials across race of face may provide more reasonable estimates of reliability in future studies

Question 8

who conducted a meta-analysis on the ORB and what did they find?

Answer 8

Meissner & Brigham, 2001

Meta-analysis empirically reviewed over 30 years of research on the ORB in memory for faces.

Results of hit and false alarm rates illustrated an ORB mirror-effect pattern in which own-race faces produced a higher proportion of hits and a lower proportion of false alarms compared with other-race faces.

Results indicated that White participants were more likely to demonstrate the ORB, especially with regard to false alarm responses.

This early research is mostly from the US in most cases is European American participants and African American participants.

Question 9

what experiment type is used for own ethnicity bias?

Answer 9

Background- Signal detection theory (Green & Swets, 1966)
Used for recognition experiments

Question 10

what does signal detection measure? and what is presented?

Answer 10

Used to measure perceptual thresholds (e.g. must a tone be to hear it/ when are you able to detect it)

Trials are presented when tone is there (noise+ signal) and trials are presented when tone is not when there is just noise

Question 11

what possibilities can arise from signal detection theory?

Answer 11

Gives four possibilities:
• Signal there and p says there- hit
• Signal there and p says not there- miss
• Signal not there and p says there – false alarm
• Signal not there and p says not there- correct rejection

Question 12

why is signal detection theory good?

Answer 12

Idea is that you need all these possibilities to have a good idea to understand how good people are at discrimination. Takes into account how good memory is accounting for the fact that people might be guessing.
Probability of hit rate and minus false alarm rate from that to get a measure of how good people are in discriminating between learned and normal items- call this sensitivity in signal detection theory (d-prime)

Question 13

what was the first empirical study of own ethnicity bias

Answer 13

First empirical study of this by Malpass and Kravitz (1969)
• Examination of 40 undergraduate students, 50% African American, 50% European American.
• Learning phase: presentation of 20 young male faces, 50% AA/50% EA, explicit learning instruction.
• Test phase: presentation of 80 young male faces, 20 learned and 60 new faces, 50% AA/50% EA; task: old/new recognition
• EA participants more accurately remembered “own-race” faces  clear „own-race bias“
• AA showed similar memory for “own-” and “other-race” faces  no „own-race bias“.
• Findings “consistent with a hypothesis of differential experience“.
European Americans better at remembering other European American faces. For the African Americans the rate was about the same. So have a bias but it is not symmetrical.

Question 14

what was the original explanation to ORB offered by Malpass and Kravitz (1969)?

Answer 14

The original explanation offered in this paper is that there is a different experience. In US Europeans are the majority and African Americans are the minority group. If in the minority have more exposure relative to the other group to people from own background but also just because of volume, more experience with the majority group.

Question 15

whose study proposed different explanations for ORE?

Answer 15

Meissner & Brigham, 2001

Question 16

what suggestions have been made to explain the ORE

Answer 16

PIMPs Curate Sexual Relations

• Physiognomic homogeneity
• Inter-racial contact
• Multi-dimensional face space model
• perceptual learning
• configural-featural hypotheis
• socio-cognitive approaches
• Racial Attitudes

Question 17

what does Physiognomic homogeneity suggest?

Answer 17

• Inherent memorability of faces, such that faces of some races might show less physiognomic variability among group members when compared with other races.
• Larger OEB in White participants due to larger physiognomic homogeneity in other ethnic groups?

Question 18

results on studies of physiognomic homogeneity

Answer 18

• However, researchers examining this hypothesis have generally found little support for is validity.
• Anthropomorphic data clearly contradict this idea-Goldstein, 1979 fond no differences in physiognomic variability among Japanese, Black and White faces.
• Additionally, several studies have demonstrated that latency and accuracy of same-different judgments do not differ across race of participant or race of face (Goldstein & Chance, 1976 1978).
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Question 19

theory of racial attitudes

Answer 19

Initial explanation for the ORB effect was that individuals with less prejudices racial attitudes would be more motivated to differentiate other race members, when compared to more prejudiced persons.
- Less motivation to interact with person and thus don’t remember face as much.

Question 20

What early research indicated that racial attitudes may play a role?

Answer 20

Early research indicated that racial attitudes appeared to influence the degree of stereotypic likeness assigned to other-race members (Secord et al., 1956).
Several early studies demonstrated a small relationship between attitudes toward other-race persons and recognition memory performance (Berger, 1969; Galper, 1973).

Question 21

but issues with racial attitudes hypothesis

Answer 21

However, when response bias was taken into account, for the studies demonstrating relationships between attitudes toward other-race persons and recognition memory performance (Berger, 1969; Galper, 1973) Dowdle and Settler found that racial attitudes were unrelated to memory performance.

Similarly, more recent studies have consistently failed to find a relationship between racial attitudes and memory for other-race faces (Brigham & Barkowitz, 1978; Lavrakas, Buri, & Mayzner, 1976; Platz & Hosch, 1988; Slone et al., 2000; Swope, 1994).
Also criticisms with using questionnaires for this- From the 1970s to the early 2000s, an influence of racial attitudes (mostly explicitly measured!) on the OEB seemed to decrease.- correlation between explicit racial attitudes (questionnaires) and face recognition but this has decreased with years- but racial bias has decreased and the OEB remains. But issue with explicit questionnaires people will not say these things in our time even though they may kind of still think it. It might not be actually a realistic measure of racist attitudes.  Need a more subtle way of tapping into racial attitudes to find if people are less motivated

Question 22

what does inter-racial contact propose?

Answer 22

Quality or quantity of interracial contact may play a vital role in the degree of ORB demonstrated by any particular individual.

Question 23

what ways have researchers proposed that increased contact with other-race individuals may increase memory performance by

Answer 23

A) reducing the likelihood of stereotypic responses and increasing the likelihood that individuals may look for more individuating information (Malpass, 1981)
B) influencing individuals’ motivation to accurately recognize other-race persons through associated social rewards and punishments (Malpass, 1990)
C) reducing the perceived complexity of unfamiliar other-race faces (Goldstein & Chance, 1971)

Question 24

evidence for inter-racial contact hypothesis

Answer 24

integrated neighbourhoods
basketball fans
meissner and Bringham, 2001

Question 25

neighbourhood study on inter-racial contact hypothesis

Answer 25

several early studies demonstrated that adolescents and children living in integrated neighbourhoods better recognized novel other-race faces than did those living in segregated neighbourhoods (Cross et al., 1971)

Question 26

basketball study on inter-racial contact hypothesis

Answer 26

Finally, a novel application of the contact hypothesis was recently conducted by Li, Dunning, and Malpass (1998) who demonstrated that White “basketball fans” were superior to White “basketball novices” in recognizing Black faces. Given that the majority of professional basketball players are Black, this effect was predicted on the basis of the fans’ experience in differentiating individual players

Question 27

Meta-analysis results on interracial contact

Answer 27

Meissner & Brigham, 2001- Meta-analysis using 39 research articles examined the influence of both racial attitudes and interracial contact on the ORB were examined across studies. Although no influence of racial attitudes was present in the sample, a small, yet significant, effect of interracial contact was found, accounting for approximately 2% of the variability across the sample.

Question 28

link between perceptual learning and inter-racial contact hypothesis

Answer 28

as seen above, a fair degree of empirical support exists for the notion that interracial contact has some influence on the magnitude of the ORB.

However, researchers are still attempting to elucidate the specific cognitive mechanisms through which contact might actuate this influence, and to model their effects in more formal ways- the most likely explanation for this is perceptual learning.

Question 29

who defined and what is perceptual learning defined as?

Answer 29

Defined by Gibson (1969)- perceptual learning involves “an increase in the ability to extract information from the environment, as a result of practice and experience with stimulation coming from it”

Question 30

what does perceptual skill involve?

Answer 30

perceptual skill involves learning to distinguish between “task-relevant” and “task-redundant” information. Thus, increases in accuracy and speed of processing appear to reflect the extent to which individuals have knowledge of, and provide attention to, the appropriate (invariant) features of the stimulus- Haider and Frensch (1999)

Question 31

what does perceptual learning say about the environment you grow up in?

Answer 31

If you grow up in a particular environment you will develop a recognition system that will help you discriminate the people around you. If you grow up in a environment where the clear majority is an ethnic group then will develop a face recognition system that is optimal to recognising faces from this group. If different face seen then is not optimal so wont remember as much.

Question 32

background for perceptual learning

Answer 32

background= perceptual skills work this way e.g. sports, chess, bird watching and even chicken sexing (Meissner and Bringham, 2001)

Question 33

evidence supporting perceptual learning hypothesis

Answer 33

Some researchers in the face memory domain have directly investigated the perceptual learning hypothesis by providing individuals with discrimination training on own-race and other-race faces. Although training seems to have no effect on improving own-race recognition (Malpass, 1981), there is some evidence that training may reduce the ORB, at least in the short run.

Question 34

what causes ORB to occur according to perceptual learning hypothesis?

Answer 34

Doesn’t occur due to motivation or prejudice but is instead about a bias in the information coming in.

Question 35

what would one expect to experimentally find in perceptual learning accounts of ORB? and generally has this been found?

Answer 35

If OEB is learned during a person’s lifetime, it should be small/absent in younger children and increase during development.

• Early studies found exactly this pattern (Chance et al., 1982).
• Development of a face memory schema/prototype, which more closely resembles own-ethnicity faces because of their more frequent occurrence?

Question 36

support for perceptual learning

Answer 36

• adoption studies show bias in adults and not in children

- levels of contact to other races

Question 37

adoption studies and support for perceptual learning

Answer 37

• Sangrigoli et al. (2005):
• Examination of adult Korean participants who were adopted during early childhood and raised in French Caucasian families.
• Adoptees recognized European faces more accurately than East Asian faces; a Korean age matched control group showed the reversed pattern.
• De Heering et al. (2010):
• Adopted Asian children (living in Western Europe for several years) do not show a bias, but similar accuracy for Asian and European faces.
   Several years of experience were not sufficient to override the own-ethnicity representation acquired during early childhood.
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Question 38

contact study to support perceptual learning

Answer 38

• Chiroro & Valentine, 1995:
• Tested Black African participants with high or low contact to other-ethnicity people, as well as White African and White British participants with high- and low other-ethnicity contact.
• OEB observed in all participant groups.
• OEB reduced in high- relative to low-contact groups.

Question 39

what is the issue of using contact and adoption in support of perceptual learning hypothesis?

Answer 39

These studies show clear influence of contact on the OEB.

• But: they do not directly show that perceptual learning underlies contact effect.
• Alternatively, participants with more contact to other-ethnicity people may be more motivated or less prejudiced.
• There is an influence of contact but it might not be about the building of expertise over time. These contact studies are often interpreted as supporting perceptual learning.

Question 40

from perceptual learning to psychological models linking sentence

Answer 40

Researchers have sought to identify the various cognitive processes that might differentiate own-race and other-race face recognition.

Question 41

1st psychological model for ORB

Answer 41

The Multidimensional Face Space model (MDFS)(Valentine, 1991; Valentine & Endo, 1992)

Question 42

what type of model is the MDFS model and what does it look at?

Answer 42

Is an exemplar based model of facial memory.

Looks at the particular manner in which faces may be represented in memory

Question 43

what does the MDFS posit?

Answer 43

Valentine (1988) proposed that, in conjunction with the notion of schema theory pioneered by Goldstein and Chance (1980), an exemplar-model reflecting “the acquisition of knowledge of how faces vary” may account for the effects of inversion, race, and distinctiveness (Valentine, 1988)

Question 44

what do dimensions of the MDFSrepresent?

Answer 44

phsiognomic characteristics

Question 45

talk through the steps of the MDFS

Answer 45

• Faces encoded as locations in a multidimensional face space (MDFS).
• Dimensions represent physiognomic characteristics
• Specific dimensions not defined, but
• Number of dimensions has to be large enough to represent any aspect that could serve to discriminate between different faces.
• Axes are normally distributed- most lie in the middle of the dimensions with a few lying at the extremes. So in the centre will represent a prototype/ average face.

Question 46

talk about the central tendency and the MDFS

Answer 46

• Origin of the space defined as the central tendency of dimensions, parameter values are assumed to vary normally around the central tendency
   The density of points decreases with increasing distance from the central tendency.

Question 47

talk about norms in the MDFS

Answer 47

the model says that there is a dorm in the middle and faces are coded as a deviation from this norm. have a vector from a face to the central tendency.
So if see a face you project the face into the space and then also have a vector from the position to the prototype and then calculate. If the vector that has been calculated is similar to a stored vector then there will be a match and the person will be recognised.

Question 48

in MDFS how must dimensions be built?

Answer 48

life-long perceptual learning

these dimensions would only arise if in development it made sense. E.g. if it made sense to have a dimension that codes for eye size then we will get this dimension. So means there needs to be some variability in faces and depends on experience what these dimensions look like. They are shaped to optimally individuate and discriminate the faces we see.

Question 49

how is recognition achieved in the MDFS?

Answer 49

• Recognition achieved by
• Encoding of a stimulus face into MDFS as a vector between the norm and the stimulus.
• If stimulus vector matches vector of a known face, stimulus face is recognized.

Question 50

how are dimensions in the MDFS optimized?

Answer 50

• They are optimized to discriminate between individual faces.

Question 51

Using the MDFS explain theoretically why ORB may occur

Answer 51

• Faces from other ethnic groups differ systematically from own-ethnicity faces.
• If people have experience with mainly own-ethnicity faces, MDFS optimal to differentiate between individual own-ethnicity, but not other-ethnicity faces.
• Other-ethnicity faces coded as more extreme values on dimensions optimized to discriminate between own-ethnicity faces.
• Vectors between the prototype and other-ethnicity faces are more similar than those for own-ethnicity faces
   Other-ethnicity faces are confused more easily! If you meet people who systematically look different to those who you build space for then they will all be projected into one region of this face. Thus it is hard to distinguish and make a match as the vectors for these faces are far more similar to one another and thus harder to discriminate and have a higher probability of mixing them up.
  This is a theoretical idea as to why the OFB may occur that is based on what the recognition system has learnt during its development.

Question 52

what is evidence for the MDFS model?

Answer 52

Based on the assumptions of the MDFS model, Chiroro and Valentine predicted that only individuals who had considerable previous experience with other-race faces (high-contact) would demonstrate distinctiveness effects for both own-race and other-race faces.

This was due largely to the notion that such individuals should be able to distinguish between typical and distinctive other-race faces based on features they had extracted through prior experience.

In contrast, low-contact individuals were predicted to demonstrate no differences in performance on the distinctiveness dimensions of other-race faces. Overall, their results indicated the predicted four-way interaction such that distinctiveness effects for low-contact individuals were confined to own-race faces. On the other hand, high-contact individuals demonstrated significant effects of distinctiveness regardless of the race of the face.

Question 53

what is the other psychological model that has been propose to explain the ORB

Answer 53

Configural-featural hypothesis CFH

Question 54

initial background for the CFH of ORB

Answer 54

Diamond and Carey (1986) proposed that perceptual learning might be operating in face recognition.

In several experiments they showed that the inversion effect was not unique to faces, but rather occurred when participants had a great deal of experience with the stimulus materials. Inversion appeared to disrupt the effectiveness with which individuals were able to encode stimuli that were highly familiar to them.

Question 55

what did Diamond and Carey claim that their initial findings on inversion effects meant?

Answer 55

This, they claimed, stemmed from experienced participants’ reliance on configural (or relational) properties of the stimulus. Novice participants, on the other hand, relied on only the featural (or isolated) aspects of the face that were less influenced by inversion. A number of subsequent studies have supported this general configural-featural hypothesis (Farah, et al., 1998)

Question 56

how have Diamond and Careys work been proposed for the ORB

Answer 56

The notion of expertise and configural processing has also been applied to the ORB effect.

Question 57

who argued for predictions of inversion for ORB? and what was found?

Answer 57

The notion of expertise and configural processing has also been applied to the ORB effect. In particular, Rhodes, Brake, Taylor, and Tan (1989) proposed that greater experience with own-race faces would lead to a larger inversion effect, due to an increased reliance on configural information.
The encoding of other-race faces, on the other hand, should not be as influenced by inversion due to the featural aspects that are relied on.

As hypothesized, Rhodes et al. observed that own-race faces were significantly more susceptible to inversion than other-race faces for measures of both reaction time and accuracy.

Question 58

how is the configural featural hypothesis similar/ different to face base

Answer 58

Similar to face base but slightly different- premise is that when you derive the info from the visual stimulus the processes that do that may not be as effective as for faces from different backgrounds. We have learnt to extract information from the faces we have more commonly seen throughout the course of our life.
If expertise is less pronounced for other-ethnicity faces, the inversion effect may also be reduced.

Question 59

how have sudies looked further into whether holistic processes are different for own and other ethnicity faces?

Answer 59

• When the two face halves are aligned you can not easily make a judgment about the individual part of the face- this is holistic processing and when parts are misaligned then HP is disrupted. (basic composite face effect)

Question 60

support for composite face effect and ORB and what does this tell us?

Answer 60

Michel et al., 2006:
- Examination of composite face effect (CFE) for own- and other-ethnicity faces in Asian and European participants.
- Participants indicate whether upper half of two subsequent faces is identical or different. Lower half of second face always different.
- Stimuli are presented quickly after each other and the task is to say is the upper half the same for the two pictures of different. The lower halves are always different and the upper half can be the same or different. Also an aligned or misaligned condition.
- CFE reflects reduced efficiency to perceive that the upper half is the same when face halves are aligned, relative to misaligned condition (holistic processing).
 CFE reduced for other-ethnicity faces.- Caucasian p’s showed more HP for Caucasian faces than for Asian faces. And the Asian faces showed stronger HP/ composite effect for other Asian faces compared to Caucasian faces.
This is something that is simply seen and making a response- thus is not something that is likely to be influenced by attitude towards a group or motivation. Still possible that it is influenced by these but compared to other experiments e.g. recognition memory it is harder to see that they would fit in.

In line with perceptual learning accounts that say that the phenomenon is based on how we perceive faces and our life time experience with faces.

Question 61

issues with Configural-featural hypothesis

Answer 61

several other studies have observed either no interaction of inversion with the ORB (Buckhout & Regan, 1988) or larger inversion effects on other-race faces (Valentine & Bruce, 1986). Given the various methodological differences across studies, further empirical and theoretical work on the significance of inversion effects in the ORB would be valuable

Question 62

what socio-cognitive approaches exist for ORB?

Answer 62

The In-group/Out-group Model (Sporer, 2001):

The Categorization-Individuation Model (CIM; Hugenberg et al., 2010):

Question 63

what do socio-cognitive approaches argue generally?

Answer 63

They don’t disagree with the overall idea that experience and expertise plays a role but argues there is something that is more important.
Would say that as long as you can recognise faces from your in-group/ out-group then this triggers an effect.

Question 64

what do socio-cognitive accounts all assume?

Answer 64

All these models assume that there is a very early decision on whether a face is an in-group or out-group face and this immediately triggers a differential processing method.

Question 65

explain the in-group/ out-group model

Answer 65

(Sporer, 2001):

• In-group faces processed via default route: encoding of configural information, results in high recognition accuracy. Better individuating information and thus better memory
• Alternatively- Detection of “out-group cue” triggers categorization before the default process can begin.
• Initiation of heterogeneous “out-group” processes (cognitive disregard, “race feature” processing at the expense of individuating information etc.).
• These result in worse recognition of out-group faces.

Question 66

what should the in-group/ out-group theory work for?

Answer 66

This theory shouldn’t just work for ethnicity it should work with all sorts of social differences.
There are paradigms you can use to test this

Question 67

support paradigm for the in-group/ out-group theory of ORB

Answer 67

Bernstein et al., 2007:
- Memory effects similar to the OEB can be induced even when perceptual expertise is held constant.
- Same-race faces marked as either belonging to participants’ university or to local football competitor. Using a different colour background
- Participants and faces all European American- thus everything was the same in respect to expertise faces were randomly assigned to the two conditions.
- Assignment of faces to social in- vs. out-group completely random and counterbalanced across participants.
- Participants more accurate at remembering “in-group” faces (although random assignment and the faces all being same ethnicity). Control condition where faces shown on red and green backgrounds and memory in this condition is the same.
Bernstein et al., 2007:
- Experiment 2: Participants perform “fake” personality test, told that they are “red or green personality”.
- Faces presented with red and green backgrounds.
- All assignments to groups arbitrary (randomly assigned to green or red label)
- Participants more accurate at remembering faces from “their” personality group.
 In- vs. out-group categorization sufficient to elicit group memory biases!

Question 68

what is the interpretation from Bernstein et al’s paradigm findings?

Answer 68

Interpretation is that random assignment is enough to illict these memory biases and this can not be explained by experitse towards a face, thus can not be about just the faces per-se. Thus would think is a strong argument against the perceptual recognition hyptoheis. So is the own ethnicity bias simply about recognising that a face is from social in/ out group.

Question 69

more support for in-group/ out-group hypothesis categorization study

Answer 69

Shriver et al., 2009:

• European American middleclass participants
• Presentation of European or African American faces in front of “wealthy“ or “impoverished“ backgrounds.
• OEB much reduced for “impoverished” condition.
• Reduction exclusively related to worse memory for own-ethnicity faces in the “impoverished” condition.
• Conclusion: OEB is to a great extent an outgrowth of categorizing stimuli as in- vs. out-group members. Less SES faces are seen as belonging to a different social group.

Question 70

more support for in-group/ out-group hypothesis individuation study

Answer 70

Hugenberg et al., 2007:

• In “individuation” condition, participants fully informed about OEB prior to learning, and instructed to individuate out-group members.
• OEB substantially reduced in the “individuation” relative to a control condition (no instruction).
• Conclusion: Motivation to individuate out-group faces increases memory accuracy. When we increase motivation people seem more able to recognise.

Question 71

who made the categorization-individuation model?

Answer 71

Hugenberg et al., 2010 (CIM)

Question 72

what does the CIM propose?

Answer 72

• Three factors determine biases in face memory:
• social categorization
• motivated individuation
• individuating experience

Question 73

talk about social categorization (CIM)

Answer 73

• Social Categorization:
• Attention is drawn to category-diagnostic facial characteristics.
• Out-group faces elicit stronger category activations, therefore category-diagnostic information strongly dominates processing.
• This results in homogenization of out-group faces.

Question 74

talk about motivated individuation (CIM)

Answer 74

(motivation is a secondary stage in this model)

• Identity-diagnostic information typically processed for in-group faces.
• But: Situational cues can motivate perceivers to redirect attention to identity of out-group faces, e.g., when identity information is particularly relevant.

Question 75

Talk about individuating experience (CIM)

Answer 75

• Individuating Experience:
• Experience in differentiating individual out-group faces partly determines efficiency of extracting identity-diagnostic information.
• Individuation experience only fully employed when perceivers are motivated to individuate.

Question 76

what is the issue with indiviudating studies?

Answer 76

But all these studies above took place in the US and researchers from around the world have tried hard to find these results within their own labs but have not replicated them. So the basic finding that can assign people to personality types doesn’t seem replicable. (Hong Kong, Germany, UK). Thus seems to depend on the specific cultural context you are working on.

Question 77

support for notion that individuating effect is specific to the culture being studied?

Answer 77

Wan et al., 2015
Used individuating instructions where you tell people about ORB and tell them to focus on remembering ethnic groups that are not their own.
When don’t tell people anything (control) European Australian and Asian Australians are both better with their own races
Finding is pretty much exactly the same in the experiment where p’s have individuating instructions.

Question 78

what do the cultural effects of individuation studies mean?

Answer 78

Doesn’t necessarily mean that the other effects in America aren’t true but means that if you try to replicate it elsewhere it doesn’t work. So seems that motivational effects have a stronger effect in some cultural contexts than others.
For example in the US African americans are a minority but are not rare- there will probably be exposure to the other ethnic group on probably a daily basis, so US people may have some expertise and this may be more than the expertise that those in Australia have for Asians.
Doesn’t mean that motivation doesn’t have an effect but could mean that if you have basic expertise and beyond this there is a motivation effect but if you don’t have the expertise (have poor perceptual coding) then there is no way to overcome this even if motivated.
So seems to counteract the social idea that motivation is more important than perceptual expertise.

Question 79

so what can overall be said about contextural/ motivational factors?

Answer 79

So both factors seem to be important but context seems hugely important and these can be used to explain discrepancies within the data.

Question 80

talk about neuro-correlates of the OEB

Answer 80

Golbey et al., 2001
• African American (AA) and European American (EA) participants view images of same and other-ethnicity faces
• Task: Try to remember the face stimuli
• Participants show stronger FFA activation for same-ethnicity faces.
• After scanning, both groups remembered faces for their ethnic group more accurately (old/ new regogntion), larger OEB for EA participants.
• Some regions in the brain showed a correlate of this memory advantage those participants who showed a clear bias in memory (better at remembering own background faces) also showed different activity (greater difference between own and other race) in left fusiform gyrus and right medial temporal lobe during learning.
• Findings suggest that differential processing of same and other ethnicity faces at both perceptual (fusiform gyrus) and mnestic (temporal lobe) stages.
• You have a perceptual processing stage advantage and memory stage advantage (memory encoding)

Question 81

ERP study of ORB?

Answer 81

Walker et al., 2008
Most on ORB focus on N170 (this is interesting as we don’t get a difference in N170 for familiar and non-familiar faces- not really related to individual face processing- so why should a component that is so early have anything to do with ORB?

• Examination of 13 Central European participants using ERPs.
• Participants completed questionnaire on “individuating experience” with other-ethnicity (i.e., “Black”) people (e.g., “I often talk to Black people in college”).
• Presentation of “Black” and “White” faces; task: detection of stimulus repetition.
• Larger N170 for other-ethnicity “Black” faces.
• Significant correlation of N170 ethnicity effect with individuating experience, i.e., participants with more one-to-one contact showed smaller N170 effects.

Question 82

explanations for findings of ERP study

Answer 82

So why should N170 have something do with individual face recognition- idea would be that face recognition is a serial process, fist must do something at a perceptual level then must match what you did at the perceptual level to something stored in the head to know if a face is recognised or not. If you have a problem at the first stage this will cause issue at later stages too. If internal description/ representation of what you see because perceptual problem from visual stimulus is not accurate then there will be an issue at the second stage (even if second stage fine).
N170 reflects the processes that are transferring the visual stimulus into an internal representation if you have a larger N170 then it is telling you that there is an issue because it needs more effort and processing resources and will probably end up with a representation that is not as accurate.

Question 83

issue with ERP study

Answer 83

Only tested one group of participants so may be something else e.g. stimuli could be darker or lighter or something else.

Question 84

how have issues with the first ERP study been overcome? and what did they do/ find?

Answer 84

Thus…need to test two groups
Wiese, Kaufmann, & Schweinberger, 2014: (left hemisphere)
- ERP study with Central European (German) and East Asian (Chinese) participants.
- During study phases, categorization of East Asian and European faces according to ethnic group; old/new recognition at test.
- Clear OEB for both groups, stronger effect for European participants.
- More negative N170 for other-ethnicity faces in both groups; stronger effect in European participants.
Seems to be nothing about the stimuli the same stimuli elicits the same N170 depending on what group you test.
- Significant correlation of N170 ethnicity effect during learning with OEB in memory at test.
- The larger the difference in N170 during learning, the larger the OEB in memory at test.
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Question 85

so what overall do ERP studies suggest?

Answer 85

ERP studies suggest that the OEB at least partly develops at early perceptual processing stages.

Tells us that at least there is an early processing stage in the N170 that is related to this memory. One interpretation with that is that it is probably more in line with the perceptual expertise explanation- this is occurring at a relatively early and automatic perceptual stage. Would assume that this is a hint that the phenomenon is related to perceptual process and perceptual expertise. Which of course doesn’t mean that other factors do not play a role.