Disruptive Effect of Holistic Bias on Processing of Other-Race Faces following Face Categorization

Prior work on own-race bias in visual face recognition has considered cognitive and social-cognitive explanations to account for the more efficient recognition of own-race faces as compared to faces of models from other races. One perceptual account with reasonable support suggests that the pattern reflects a cognitive tendency away from holistic processing of other-race faces. The present study engaged participants in an orientation task that provoked either global (holistic) or local (feature) processing prior to a face recognition task. Response latencies suggested that inducing a global processing bias slowed recognition of other-race faces relative to that of own-race faces, whereas inducing a local processing bias led to nearly equal face recognition times for both categories of faces. Furthermore, processing of other-race faces was slower with a global rather than a local processing bias. Results provide converging evidence that own-race faces and other-race faces differ in global analysis received.