Purpose

The other-race effect shows that people are better recognizing faces from their own-race compared to other-race faces. This effect can have dramatic consequences in applied scenarios whereby face identification is paramount, such as eyewitness identification. This paper aims to investigate whether observers have insights into their ability to recognize other-race faces.

Design/methodology/approach

Chinese ethnic observers performed objective measures of own- and other-race face recognition – the Cambridge Face Memory Test Chinese and the Cambridge Face Memory Test original; the PI20 – a 20-items self-reported measured of general face recognition abilities; and the ORE20 – a new developed 20-items self-reported measure of other-race face recognition.

Findings

Recognition of own-race faces was better compared to other-race faces. This effect was also evident at a phenomenological level, as observers reported to be worse recognizing other-race faces compared to own-race faces. Additionally, although a moderate correlation was found between own-race face recognition abilities and the PI20, individual differences in the recognition of other-race faces was only poorly associated with observers’ scores in the ORE20.

Research limitations/implications

These results suggest that observers’ insights to recognize faces are more consistent and reliable for own-race faces.

Practical implications

Self-reported measures of other-race recognition could produce misleading results. Thus, when evaluating eyewitness’ accuracy identifying other-race faces, objective measures should be used.

Originality/value

In contrast to own race recognition, people have very limited insights into their recognition abilities for other race faces.

中文翻译：

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自我报告的对自己和其他种族人脸的人脸识别能力

目的

异族效应表明，与其他种族的面孔相比，人们更容易识别本种族的面孔。这种效果在人脸识别至关重要的应用场景中会产生巨大的影响，例如目击者识别。本文旨在调查观察者是否了解他们识别其他种族面孔的能力。

设计/方法/方法

华裔观察员对自己和其他种族的人脸识别进行了客观测量——剑桥人脸记忆测试中文和剑桥人脸记忆测试原版；PI20 – 20 项自我报告的一般人脸识别能力测量；和 ORE20——一种新开发的 20 项自我报告的其他种族人脸识别措施。

发现

与其他种族的面孔相比，对本种族面孔的识别更好。这种影响在现象学层面上也很明显，因为观察者报告说，与本种族的面孔相比，识别其他种族面孔的能力更差。此外，虽然在本种族人脸识别能力和 PI20 之间发现了中等相关性，但其他种族人脸识别的个体差异与观察者在 ORE20 中的分数的相关性很低。

研究限制/影响

这些结果表明，观察者识别面孔的洞察力对于本种族面孔更加一致和可靠。

实际影响

自我报告的其他种族识别措施可能会产生误导性结果。因此，在评估目击者识别其他种族面孔的准确性时，应使用客观的衡量标准。

原创性/价值

与自己的种族识别相比，人们对他们对其他种族面孔的识别能力的了解非常有限。