Abstract
The effect of race on face perception is less understood in multiracial societies, especially when faces are categorized against other objects (face categorization). As facial appearances differ across racial groups, categorizing faces of different races into the same generic “face” category is not a trivial process. In addition, the racial background of the observer could modulate such face-categorization performance. Thus, we seek to understand whether the race of the face and the observer’s race influence the speed of face categorization among racially diverse Singaporeans, of which Chinese are the majority (>70%) while Indians and Malays are significant minorities (>20% together). Such effects were examined by a verified, sensitive rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm (Or, Goh, & Lee, 2021, Vision Research). Singaporean observers (N=107; 32 Chinese, 39 Indians, 36 Malays) were presented with a rapid sequence of 4650 color natural images each containing either a face (Chinese, Indian, or Malay; 150 in total) or a non-face object randomly (SOA=83.3ms). Observers were instructed to press a key as soon as they saw a face each time in the RSVP sequence. Generally, observers responded faster to Chinese faces than to Indian and Malay faces, regardless of the race of the observer. Importantly, even minority observers showed speed advantages in categorizing the majority-race Chinese faces. This was surprising as we did not find the same-race preferences commonly reported in face-identification studies conducted in monoracial communities. Interestingly, such majority-race advantages were eliminated for these minority observers who performed a second sequence in grayscale, indicating that color interacts with face race during face categorization. This novel preference to the majority-race faces suggests that face-categorization performance depends on the racial diversity of the society which influences people’s racial experience.