Abstract
In this study we tested three races (Asians, blacks, and Caucasians) to determine whether race had any effect on how people recognize disguised faces. Participants (n=43) initially viewed a set of 12 faces and were asked to make a judgment of the face (i.e., is the person introverted/extroverted). They were then given an intervening irrelevant face task. Finally, participants were asked to identify if any of the faces within a simultaneous lineup had been seen during the initial part of the experiment (old/new task). The lineups were made up of four individuals matched on both race and gender. There were 48 lineups, 24 of which included an "old" face and 24 which did not. In the initial training phase the faces were shown undisguised (six faces, half male/half female, two of each race), or disguised with a wig and glasses (six faces, half male/half female, two of each race). During the final old/new task, all the faces were shown without disguises; thus some faces were changed between disguise and test (disguise removed) and some appeared the same. In addition, the faces shown were either Asian, black, or Caucasian and participants were also Asian, black, or Caucasian. Our results did not indicate an Other Race Effect within this disguise manipulation. Rather, for all three groups of participants, the biggest difference between disguised and undisguised was for Caucasian faces, the second biggest difference was for Asian faces, and smallest difference was for black faces. These findings may indicate that disguised are more disruptive for some races than others, perhaps because the disguises are obscuring the specific perceptual cues that are particularly relevant for individuation within that racial category.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2014