Contextual variation in automatic evaluative bias to racially-ambiguous faces

Two experiments assessed how racial ambiguity and racial salience moderates the cross-race effect (CRE). In experiment 1, White and Black participants studied and identified the race of Asian, Black, Latino, and White faces that varied in ethnic typicality (high or low ET). For White participants, the CRE was larger when comparing high-ET White faces to high-ET other-race faces than low-ET other-race faces. Black participants showed a similar CRE reduction by ethnic typicality, but also showed a less prevalent CRE than White participants. Experiment 2 replicated experiment 1 procedures, but without the race identification task and only with White participants. Experiment 2 findings were comparable to experiment 1. Furthermore, experiment 2 showed a noticeably smaller CRE on Black faces than experiment 1, eliciting questions about increased racial salience amplifying the CRE. Results’ general implications and the conceptual roots that indirectly link the CRE and racism will be discussed.

Summary Two recognition memory experiments using photographs of black, white, and Japanese faces as stimuli were performed. In Experiment I, white Ss showed most accurate recognition memory for white faces, next most accurate recognition for black faces, and least accurate memory for Japanese faces. In Experiment II, both white and black Ss were tested with all three groups of faces. Again, it was found that whites did better on white faces than on black faces and did least well on Japanese faces. Blacks, in contrast, did best on black faces, next best on white faces, and also did least well on Japanese faces. This interaction of race of 5 with race of pictured face points to differential prior experience with various kinds of faces as the basis for these differences in memory performance. More generally, these findings support the applicability of the concept of schema to the processes by which faces are discriminated, processed, stored, and remembered.

The Cost of Racial Salience on Face Memory: How the Cross-Race Effect is Moderated by Racial Ambiguity and the Race of the Perceiver and the Perceived

In research on racial categorization we tend to focus on socialization, on environmental influences, and on social factors. One important factor, though, is perception itself In our experiment we let people label persons on dimensions which they could freely use. The participants were initially exposed to a full series either of black faces or of white faces. We observed a clear effect of initial exposure on explicit verbal categorizations. When initially exposed to white faces, participants used racial labels for the subsequent black faces only. In contrast, racial labels were used for black as well as white faces after initial exposure to black faces, which indicates a shift to in-group categorization after having initially inspected black faces. In conclusion, this effect documents highly adaptive categorizations caused by visual context alone, suggesting that racial thoughts are based on relatively volatile category representations.

Does seeing a scowling face change your impression of the next person you see? Does this depend on the race of the two people? Across four studies, White participants evaluated neutrally expressive White males as less threatening when they followed angry (relative to neutral) White faces; Black males were not judged as less threatening following angry Black faces. This lack of threat-anchored contrast for Black male faces is not attributable to a general tendency for White targets to homogenize Black males-neutral Black targets following smiling Black faces were contrasted away from them and seen as less friendly-and emerged only for perceivers low in motivation to respond without prejudice (i.e., for those relatively comfortable responding prejudicially). This research provides novel evidence for the overperception of threat in Black males.

We estimated associations between psychiatric providers' self-reported amount and valence of interaction with individuals of Black race/ethnicity during childhood and three implicit association tests (IATs) scores. Valence of interaction refers to the positive or negative nature of childhood interactions, capturing whether these interactions were reported as generally favorable or unfavorable. In a cross-sectional study, psychiatric providers and trainees reported the amount and valence of interaction with (1) individuals of Black race/ethnicity during childhood, (2) colleagues, and (3) patients of Black race/ethnicity during medical practice. Providers also completed three IATs pairing Black or White faces and terms about psychiatric diagnosis, compliance, and treatment. Linear and logistic regression models estimated relationships between IAT D-scores and ratings of interaction amount and valence with individuals of Black race/ethnicity. Among 294 providers (medical students, residents, fellows, and board-certified psychiatrists), increased self-reported amount (βΔ Compliance = -.08, p < .01 and βΔ Treatment = -.09, p < .001) and valence (βΔ Compliance = -.08, p < .01 and βΔ Treatment = -.08, p < .01) of childhood interaction with individuals of Black race/ethnicity were significantly associated with lower D-scores on IAT tasks. In contrast, ratings of amount and valence of recent interaction with colleagues and patients of Black race/ethnicity were not statistically associated with IAT D-scores. While amount and valence of interaction between providers and individuals of Black race/ethnicity during childhood were associated with lower implicit association scores, recent interactions with colleagues and patients of Black race/ethnicity were not significantly associated with implicit associations. Emerging research suggest that lower IAT D-scores may be associated with more unbiased behaviors and decisions in clinical settings. Considering this, our findings suggest that early-life interactions with individuals of Black race/ethnicity may influence implicit biases in adulthood, with potential implications for reducing racial disparities in psychiatric care. However, further research is needed to confirm these relationships and fully understand their impact in clinical contexts.

Many studies investigating first impressions from faces employ stimulus sets that comprise only White faces. It is argued that participants lack the necessary perceptual expertise to provide reliable trait evaluations when viewing faces from ethnicities that differ from their own. In combination with a reliance on White and WEIRD participants, this concern has contributed to the widespread use of White face stimuli in this literature. The present study sought to determine whether concerns about the use of so-called other-race faces are justified by assessing the test-retest reliability of trait judgments made about same- and other-race faces. In two experiments conducted on 400 British participants, we find that White British participants made reliable trait judgments about Black faces, and Black British participants made reliable trait judgments about White faces. It is important that future work be conducted to determine how widely these results generalize. Considering our findings, however, we suggest (a) that the default assumption in future first impressions research should be that participants-particularly those recruited from diverse communities-are able to form reliable first impressions of other-race faces and (b) that faces of color be included in stimulus sets whenever possible. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Adults show better memory for ambiguous faces of their own race than for ambiguous faces of another race, even when the faces are identical and differentiated only by extraneous cues to racial category. We investigated whether similar context effects operate early in development. Young children raised in predominantly White environments were presented with computer-generated White-Black morphed faces, each paired with either the White or the Black face that contributed to its construction, and were told that the two faces in each pair were siblings. The children's subsequent recognition memory was more accurate for faces that had been paired with White siblings than for faces that had been paired with Black siblings. The same effect did not obtain when the ambiguous faces were paired with White or Black faces that did not contribute to their construction and did not look like siblings. These findings suggest that face memory in children is not driven exclusively by visual information present in faces and instead depends on an interplay of categorical and perceptual information about race and relationships.

Pain experienced by Black individuals is systematically underestimated, and recent studies have shown that part of this bias is rooted in perceptual factors. We used Reverse Correlation to estimate visual representations of the pain expression in Black and White faces, in participants originating from both Western and African countries. Groups of raters were then asked to evaluate the presence of pain and other emotions in these representations. A second group of White raters then evaluated those same representations placed over a neutral background face (50% White; 50% Black). Image-based analyses show significant effects of culture and face ethnicity, but no interaction between the two factors. Western representations were more likely to be judged as expressing pain than African representations. For both cultural groups, raters also perceived more pain in White face representations than in Black face representations. However, when changing the background stimulus to the neutral background face, this effect of face ethnic profile disappeared. Overall, these results suggest that individuals have different expectations of how pain is expressed by Black and White individuals, and that cultural factors may explain a part of this phenomenon.

Prior research regarding the influence of face structure on character judgments and first impressions reveals that bias for certain face-types is ubiquitous, but these studies primarily used decontextualized White faces for stimuli. Given the disadvantages Black men face in the legal system, this study aimed to investigate whether the criminal face-type presented in the context of crime influenced different legal system-type judgments as a function of perpetrator race. In a mixed-model design, participants saw Black and White computer-generated faces that varied in criminality presented with either violent or nonviolent crime scenarios. At test, participants attempted to identify the original perpetrator from a photo array, along with providing penalty severity judgments for the crime committed. Results indicate that when crimes were violent, participants meted harsher penalties overall to Black faces or to high-criminality faces identified as the perpetrator. Furthermore, for violent crimes, participants were more likely to select a face from the photo array that was higher/equally as high in criminality rating relative to the actual perpetrator when memory failed or when the perpetrator was Black. Overall, the findings suggest that when people are making judgments that could influence another's livelihood, they may rely heavily on facial cues to criminality and the nature of the crime; and this is especially the case for Black faces presented in the context of violent crime. The pattern of results provides further support for the pervasive stereotype of Black men as criminal, even in our racially diverse sample wherein 36% identified as Black.

The malleability of stereotyping matters in social psychology and in society. Previous work indicates rapid amygdala and cognitive responses to racial out-groups, leading some researchers to view these responses as inevitable. In this study, the methods of social-cognitive neuroscience were used to investigate how social goals control prejudiced responses. Participants viewed photographs of unfamiliar Black and White faces, under each of three social goals: social categorization (by age), social individuation (vegetable preference), and simple visual inspection (detecting a dot). One study recorded brain activity in the amygdala using functional magnetic resonance imaging, and another measured cognitive activation of stereotypes by lexical priming. Neither response to photos of the racial out-group was inevitable; instead, both responses depended on perceivers' current social-cognitive goal.

Addressing racial bias in early childhood is crucial for fostering inclusivity and reducing social inequalities. This study examined the effectiveness of individuation training in reducing racial bias among Canadian preschool-aged children and explored how interracial contact might influence changes in children's implicit anti-Black bias. A total of 113 preschool-age children (60 females, Mage = 5.31 years) were trained to individuate Black or White faces. Results showed a significant reduction in implicit anti-Black bias following Black individuation training, whereas no significant change was observed in the White individuation training group. Additionally, factors such as interracial friendships were found to influence the reduction of bias. These findings contribute to the understanding of developmental interventions for diverse cultural contexts, with implications for early childhood education and efforts to promote social inclusivity. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://www.powtoon.com/c/enBEKBMdMXR/1/m.

Given a planar triangulation all of whose faces are initially white, we study the problem of colouring the faces black one by one so that the boundary between black and white faces as well as the number of connected black and white regions are small at all times. We call such a colouring sequence of the triangles a flooding. We prove that a flooding with boundary size [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] regions can be computed in [Formula: see text] time. We also prove that it is in general impossible to guarantee boundary size [Formula: see text], for any ∊ &gt; 0, and a number of regions that is o( log n), where n is the number of faces of the triangulation.

The role of race in lineup construction has been largely overlooked in eyewitness research. The current work addresses this gap and introduces an innovative approach for the evaluation of lineup properties by making use of multidimensional scaling methods. In Study 1, self-identified Black and White participants assessed the similarity between face pairs from racially homogeneous sets of Black and White faces, which served as suspects and potential fillers in Study 2. Based on these ratings, we derived face spaces for same-race and cross-race perceivers, representing the perceived similarity between face pairs. In Study 2, independent groups of Black and White participants created lineups for Black and White suspects by selecting fillers from a pool of description-matched faces. The face spaces from Study 1 were used to evaluate suspect-filler similarity and the fairness of lineups created by same-race and cross-race constructors, as perceived by hypothetical Black and White eyewitnesses. These face spaces also allowed for an exploration of filler-selection strategies. The analysis of face spaces revealed a remarkable consistency in same-race and cross-race perceivers' perceptions of relative similarity for both Black and White face sets. Notably, lineups created by same-race and cross-race constructors were similar in terms of suspect-filler similarity and fairness for both Black-suspect and White-suspect lineups, regardless of the eyewitness's race. While constructors from both groups tended to select fillers who were similar to the suspect, they appeared to incorporate additional considerations to avoid selecting fillers who were too similar to the suspect. We discuss the implications of these findings for forensic lineup construction in practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

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