Interracial Contact Training Shapes Face Recognition

• Zoe Davidson-Hawes, Psychology, University of Delaware
• Margaret Welte, Psychology, University of Delaware

• Jennifer Kubota, Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Delaware
• Jasmin Cloutier, Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Delaware

The cross-race recognition deficit (CRD) describes how perceivers recognize the faces of individuals within their racial ingroup more accurately than the outgroup (Singh et al., 2021), and previous studies suggest that experimentally manipulated contact through training can reduce the CRD (Lebrecht et al., 2009). Training that promotes individuation (i.e., encoding others based on identity-specific characteristics) seems especially effective at improving other-race face recognition, as this helps people form more complex impressions, thus improving person memory (Lebrecht et al., 2009).

The current study investigates how different forms of experimentally manipulated contact with other-race individuals affect the CRD in self-identified White perceivers. In the perceptual individuation condition, participants learn to associate perceived Black faces with a unique identifier comprising two randomized letters. In the positive and neutral knowledge-based individuation conditions, participants learn to associate perceived Black faces with a positive or neutral statement describing a personal quality or behavior. Before and after these two weeks of training, participants complete a face recognition task with a novel set of perceived Black and White faces to assess the CRD. Manipulating the training condition between-subjects will help highlight whether a difference in quality of experimentally manipulated individuation experience affects the CRD.

Referencing prior research showcasing a CRD among self-identified White perceivers and a decrease in the CRD after contact training (Lebrecht et al., 2009), we hypothesize that participants will display a CRD that will diminish from pre- to post-training. Our exploratory hypothesis predicts that knowledge-based individuation will be more effective than perceptual individuation at decreasing the CRD when encountering new other-race faces because of the differences in quality of contact during individuation practice.