Date of Award
Spring 2013
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Science
Department
Psychology
Abstract
Same race faces are recognized better than other race faces, and this other-race effect (ORE) can be explained by reduced holistic processing of other-race faces. Holistic processing is defined as a tendency to process all parts of a stimulus interactively as a whole. Previous studies found that experience can mediate ORE in holistic processing. The present study investigated whether quality or quantity of experience with the other-race better predicts holistic processing of other-race faces between Caucasian and Asian individuals. Contrary to what we expected, we did not find any correlation between experience with the other-race and the ORE in holistic processing for either Caucasian or Asian participants. However, our experiment revealed a negative correlation between the ORE in holistic processing and the response time for the actual face discrimination ability of the other-race faces among Asian participants. Such a surprising result indicates that for Asian individuals, the response time at the perceptual level that actually modulates ORE in holistic processing.
Recommended Citation
Duan, Karen, "Generalization of expert face processing takes time" (2013). Honors Theses. 57.
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/honors-theses/57
