The other-race effect and holistic processing across racial groups

Abstract It is widely accepted that holistic processing important for face perception. However, it remains unclear whether the other-race effect (ORE) (i.e. superior recognition own-race faces) arises from reduced of faces. To address this issue, we adopted a cross-cultural design where Malaysian Chinese, African, European Caucasian and Australian participants performed four different tasks: (1) yes–no recognition, (2) composite, (3) whole-part (4) global–local tasks. Each task was completed with unfamiliar own- Results showed pronounced ORE in task. Both composite-face effects were found; however, these did not appear to be stronger faces than In task, Chinese African demonstrated global bias compared both European- Australian-Caucasian participants. Importantly, found little or no cross-task correlation between any measures ability. Overall, our findings cast doubt on prevailing account due Further studies should adopt an interactionist approach taking into cultural, motivational, socio-cognitive factors.