"They all look alike": Understanding the "other race effect"

[DaemonSeid]

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By Kate Shaw | Last updated about 20 hours ago


We’ve all heard conversations, comments, and even jokes about how all the members of some race look alike. While that statement is certainly a generalization, it is true that people have a harder time distinguishing between people from a different race than they do within their own race. This phenomenon, called the “other race effect,” was first written about nearly a century ago (and supported by several subsequent studies), but researchers have made little progress on determining why, exactly, this task is so hard for people. Last week, two European psychologists published a paper in PNAS that begins to help us understand the neurophysiological basis of the other race effect.

Twenty-four subjects participated in the study; half were of East Asian descent, the other half were Western Caucasian. Each participant saw a series of two faces presented on a computer screen and had to determine whether the two faces belonged to the same person or not. The two faces were either both East Asian or both Western Caucasian, and were either the faces of two different people, or the same person’s face repeated twice. In all trials, the facial expression changed between faces to make the same face slightly harder to identify.

There are two things you need to know to understand the experiments. In general, when a particular stimulus—such as a face—is shown twice, the neural activity involved in the response decreases the second time; this effect is called repetition suppression. A particular electrophysiological signal in the brain, called the N170 event related potential, is triggered by the sight of a human face.

Due to repetition suppression, if the brain recognizes the second face as being identical to the first, the N170 signal should decrease the second time; if the brain concludes it is a different face, the signal should not decrease in response to the second face.

By subtracting the amplitude of the signal triggered by the second face from that triggered by the first, the researchers could determine how the subjects’ neurophysiological responses differed between the treatments. This measurement was called the single-trial repetition suppression (stRS) value.

As expected, the average stRS value for same race/same face trials was the highest for both East Asian and Western Caucasian subjects. In other words, the neural response decreased the most—signifying that the brain recognized it was seeing the same face twice—when the subjects were presented with a repeated face from their own race.

[MysticCat]

^^^ DS, you do know this reads like it's your writing, rather than being a quote of almost the entire article that you linked -- without attribution? Once I realize something like this is actually a quote (despite the absence of quation marks, block quoting or any other signal), I stop reading the post and click on the link.

Really, why not tell us the title of the article (putting it in the subject line doesn't necessarily clue the reader) and who wrote or published it (ie, who owns the copyright)? Why not use selective quoting as a teaser and give a description of it (with maybe a few thoughts on why you think it's interesting) instead of just indiscriminate cutting and pasting?

[DrPhil]

I agree, MysticCat. A clip of the article is sufficient and that is also why some sites will not let you cut and paste but so much of the article.

I also like for people to include their own response to an article to get the thread discussion started.

As for the article and the research:
This research will be received differently depending upon one's background and interests regarding race and ethnic relations. This is just saying what "we" already know about race and ethnicity which is that while it is not biological there are physical identifiers that are attributed to racial and ethnic groups. And people can identify intraracially but not the "other" (interracially). Nonwhites say all whites look alike regardless of ethnicity and culture; nonBlacks say all Blacks look alike regardless of ethnicity and culture; nonLatina(o)s say that all Latina(o)s look alike regardless of ethnicity and culture; nonAsians say that all Asians look alike regardless of ethnicity and culture. People tend not to say that for their own race and ethnicity because while they recognize the similarities that make them identify as that group, they think there are individual differences.

What's more interesting is looking at this through the lens of dominant-minority relations but that would be a different study conducted by researchers with a completely different background.

[DaemonSeid]

Well, I believe it's just more than "They have certain traits that makes then stand out more than others". Cross ID bias IMO is real and in some cases it may mean that it's actually harder to distinguish others of a different race from your own. So, by reading this I have a somewhat better understanding how a non black person could consider that 'all black people look alike' enev though there are many shades and shapes.

Quite honestly, I have difficultly distiguishing physical Asian traits (who is Chinese, Japanese, etc and so on) and maybe this study will shed some more light as to why we all show a bit of bias towards members of other races.

[AlphaFrog]

Question: Do Asians "expect" to be recognized as Japanese/Chinese/Korean/etc or is it a simple matter of referring to them as "Asian" if you don't know? (Much like you shouldn't refer to a Latino as Mexican/Cuban/Honduran unless you know. As far as I know, Hispanics don't "expect" people to know their native country by looks alone.)

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog

Question: Do Asians "expect" to be recognized as Japanese/Chinese/Korean/etc or is it a simple matter of referring to them as "Asian" if you don't know? (Much like you shouldn't refer to a Latino as Mexican/Cuban/Honduran unless you know. As far as I know, Hispanics don't "expect" people to know their native country by looks alone.)

Likewise though you would assume that would be true for white people and the different European countries.

Shoot, even whats suppose to be a defining nature of Ireland...red hair. It's still second in Europe by percentages to Scotland.

[carnation]

I've known many Asians who can choose correctly whether another Asian is Japanese, Chinese, or Korean almost every time. When our 2 Japanese daughters were younger, Japanese people used to come up to us frequently--especially in Atlanta--and ask how they came here.

There's a huge Hispanic population here and some of the Mexicans and Guatemalans get way upset if you think they're from the incorrect country.

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

Shoot, even whats suppose to be a defining nature of Ireland...red hair.

Even if it were true that all Irish had red hair and only Irish have red hair, there's still the issue of Miss Clairol. They don't sell Asian eyes in a bottle.

Originally Posted by carnation

There's a huge Hispanic population here and some of the Mexicans and Guatemalans get way upset if you think they're from the incorrect country.

Of course they do, but they don't generally get upset if you refer to them using the generic Hispanic/Latino (preference on which is a whole 'nother thread)...which is what my question is about. Does the same idea apply to Asians, or do they expect non-Asians to recognize the traits like most Asians can? I've never lived in an area with much of an Asian population.

[carnation]

I lived in Hawaii for awhile. I knew many Asians who were surprised and/or annoyed when non-Asians couldn't identify what kind of Asian ancestry they had. They would get even more upset at Asians who couldn't do it.

My sister-in-law is Korean. She and her family are astonished that we can't all pick out a Korean every time, although my brother is really good at after it all these years.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

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By Kate Shaw | Last updated about 20 hours ago

Well, I guess it's a start, although the "Last updated about 20 hours ago" on GreekChat is just another example of indiscriminate cutting and pasting. Not quoting 6 of the article's 9 paragraphs would have been real progress, but it's all about baby steps.

As for the article, I didn't see much that seemed like real news to me -- more like confirmation of what seems a bit of common sense. I frankly had more questions about Ars Technica. I'd never heard of it before.

[BluPhire]

I've always noticed the pattern that those who get offended by people not knowing exactly where they are from usually signifies a deep rooted hatred for the other sub group.

For instance the beef between Japanese and Chinese and don't get me started on the Cuban, Mexican, Dominican and the sad stigmas being from that group have attributed to each other thanks to pass history and how they were seperated because of it.

[Drolefille]

I think it comes down to exposure in one's every day life. My clients are predominantly black male (which is a whole nother topic) and after having had them in my groups once I don't tend to forget their names or mix them up. But it took me having interactions with them where I was using their names and identifying them by sight as "Mr. ______." Except for brand new clients (or ones who never show up) I only have 2 guys whose names I confuse and it's because they're both tall, thin, have names that start with the same letter and similarly shaped faces. But they don't look alike, my brain just fumbles with the right name for the unique face.

But with another population entirely I don't know that I'd do as "well" without more exposure.

[AOII Angel]

I don't think Asians can tell as well as they say they can. I went to Tokyo last year for my birthday with my husband and my good friend, Sarah, who is Vietnamese and was adopted at birth by a white couple. She was mistaken for Japansese everywhere we went in Tokyo. Many times, waitresses would try to speak Japanese to her and get mad when she didn't understand them, then look at me like I could explain why she didn't know Japanese. I think they thought she was out Japanese tour guide. Sarah was also baffled that everyone kept handing her flyers and coupons as we passed stores but never handed them to my husband and I. The flyers were in Japanese, not Vietnamese, so they would only benefit her if the people thought she was Japanese.

[PiKA2001]

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

I don't think Asians can tell as well as they say they can. I went to Tokyo last year for my birthday with my husband and my good friend, Sarah, who is Vietnamese and was adopted at birth by a white couple. She was mistaken for Japansese everywhere we went in Tokyo. Many times, waitresses would try to speak Japanese to her and get mad when she didn't understand them, then look at me like I could explain why she didn't know Japanese. I think they thought she was out Japanese tour guide. Sarah was also baffled that everyone kept handing her flyers and coupons as we passed stores but never handed them to my husband and I. The flyers were in Japanese, not Vietnamese, so they would only benefit her if the people thought she was Japanese.

Maybe she was mistaken for being a resident of Japan, not necessarily of Japanese heritage. It's my understanding (I've never been there) that because of Japans economic clout they attract a lot of immigrants from other Asian countries.

[carnation]

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

I don't think Asians can tell as well as they say they can. I went to Tokyo last year for my birthday with my husband and my good friend, Sarah, who is Vietnamese and was adopted at birth by a white couple. She was mistaken for Japansese everywhere we went in Tokyo. Many times, waitresses would try to speak Japanese to her and get mad when she didn't understand them, then look at me like I could explain why she didn't know Japanese. I think they thought she was out Japanese tour guide.

Haha, you should see the shock on the faces of Japanese people when they realize that BlazerCheer and SweetTea not only don't speak Japanese but that since they came as infants, they have deep Southern accents. They want to know why we didn't find them tutors--yeah right, where? The weird thing is that Filipino and Vietnamese people have never asked us why our daughters from those countries don't speak their native languages...they have, however, been able to ID them right off as Filipina and Vietnamese.