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A CROSS‐CULTURAL STUDY OF RECOGNITION MEMORY FOR FACES 1
Author(s) -
Shepherd John W.,
Deregowski Jan B.,
Ellis Hadyn D.
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
international journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1464-066X
pISSN - 0020-7594
DOI - 10.1080/00207597408247104
Subject(s) - ethnic group , psychology , differential treatment , race (biology) , white (mutation) , humanities , perception , african american , black african , ethnology , gender studies , art , anthropology , sociology , biochemistry , chemistry , neuroscience , international trade , business , gene
The hypothesis that subjects would show superior memory for faces of members of their own ethnic group compared with those of a different ethnic group was tested in a cross‐cultural experiment. Thirty two African and 32 European subjects were presented with coloured photographs of ten black Africans and ten white Europeans, with the instruction to try to remember them. Twenty four hours later, the subjects were presented with the same photographs shuffled with an equal number of new photographs of Africans and Europeans, and were asked to identify those they had seen before. The index d' was used as a measure of recognition. As predicted, European subjects were superior at recognising European faces compared with African faces, and African subjects were superior at recognising African faces compared with European faces. Response bias data indicated that European subjects had a differential response bias for the photographs of the two ethnic groups, but African subjects did not differ in their bias towards the two ethnic groups. African subjects did, however, show differential response bias for sex within the European faces. The results were discussed in terms of perceptual discrimination and stereotyping.