Chapter 3 is the first experimental chapter of this thesis. It investigates two proposed causes of the other-race effect in face recognition, namely social motivation and total lifetime experience. As reviewed in Chapter 2, a series of previous studies, in US settings, have provided supporting evidence for the idea that a motivation-to-
individuate instruction ca be effective to reduce the other-race effect, using the old-new task on white and black stimuli. However, perceptual experience theories proposed personal interracial contact could contribute to reduce the size of the other-race effect. Additionally, the categorization-individuation model suggests the factors of motivation and experience is able to jointly contribute to the other-race effect.
In the present chapter, a comprehensive literature review and 5 studies attempt to solve the question of whether the potential factors of social motivation or the factor of interracial contact can contribute to the other-race effect, together or independently. We apply crossover design of testing Caucasian and Asian participants on Caucasian and Asian faces in an Australian setting, in which Caucasians and Asians have comparable socio-economic status, in contrast to the US setting in which the socio- economic status of African-Americans is much lower than that of Caucasians. Also, a new self-report questionnaire is designed to assess whether the motivation instruction is effective to elicit participants to improve their motivation of telling apart the other-race individuals. We used both an old-new recognition task and the CFMT task: the old-new task aims to replicate the results from previous relevant studies (e.g. Hugenberg’s lab, while, using different versions of CFMT format attempts to test the real face recognition by avoiding the flaws of old-new task. We, finally, propose a new dual-route approach to explain the other-race effect, in which it proposes that motivation and interracial contact can contribute to other-race effect independently, with their relative
contributions differing across cultural settings depending on the relative socio-economic status of the races of the faces and observers.
The chapter is structured as follows. I first give the publication status and describe contributions of myself and the other authors. The paper as published in Cognition then follows, including the reference section for that paper. After the references, the Supplementary Materials for the paper appear.
3.1.2 Publication status
This chapter is published as:
Wan, L., Crookes, K., Reynolds, K. J., Irons, J. L., & McKone, E. (2015). A cultural setting where the other-race effect on face recognition has no social–
motivational component and derives entirely from lifetime perceptual experience.
Cognition, 144, 91-115.
3.1.3 Author contributions
3.1.3.1 Literature review
• Wan was responsible for the literature review, including literature searches, reading papers, understanding methods and results, summarizing findings, and noting methodological issues. Crookes also advised on some relevant literature.
3.1.3.2 Conceived and designed the experiments
• All the experiments were conceived and designed by Wan in conjunction with McKone.
3.1.3.3 Programming and Testing
• Wan programmed all the tasks for same-images tests, and Irons (research assistant) programmed the tasks for Cambridge face memory test
• Wan tested most of Eastern-raised Asian participants, and part of Western- raised Asians and Caucasian participants. Irons tested some of the Caucasian participants. Bank (research assistant) tested 51 Western-raised Asian
participants at Western Australian University, under the direction of Crookes. The remaining Caucasians, Eastern-raised Asians, and Western-raised Asians were tested in labs by tutors.
3.1.3.4 Data analysis
• Wan was responsible for deciding what statistical analysis would be preformed in conjunction with McKone.
• McKone suggested some more additional analyses. • Wan performed all the data analysis.
3.1.3.5 Theory development
• Wan and McKone worked together to develop the arguments and theories presented.
3.1.3.6 Writing
• Wan and McKone wrote the paper, with contributions from the other authors. • Wan produced all the tables and most of the figures.
3.2 Abstract
Competing approaches to the other-race effect (ORE) see its primary cause as either a lack of motivation to individuate social outgroup members, or a lack of perceptual experience with other-race faces. Here, we argue that the evidence
supporting the social-motivational approach derives from a particular cultural setting: a high status group (typically US Whites) looking at the faces of a low status group (US Blacks) with whom observers typically have at least moderate perceptual experience. In contrast, we test motivation-to-individuate instructions across five studies covering an extremely wide range of perceptual experience, in a cultural setting of more equal socio-economic status, namely Asian and Caucasian participants (N=480) tested on Asian and Caucasian faces. We find no social-motivational component at all to the ORE, specifically: no reduction in the ORE with motivation instructions, including for novel images of the faces, and at all experience levels; no increase in correlation between own- and other-race face recognition, implying no increase in shared
processes; and greater (not the predicted less) effort applied to distinguishing other-race faces than own-race faces under normal ("no instructions") conditions. Instead, the ORE was predicted by level of contact with the other-race. Our results reject both pure social- motivational theories and also the recent Categorization-Individuation model of
Hugenberg et al. (2010). We propose a new dual-route approach to the ORE, in which there are two causes of the ORE — lack of motivation, and lack of experience — that contribute differently across varying world locations and cultural settings.