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Abstract
Face recognition, holistic processing, and processing of configural and featural facial
information are known to be influenced by face race, with better performance for own-
than other-race faces. However, whether these various other-race effects (OREs) arise
from the same underlying mechanisms or from different processes remains unclear. The
present study addressed this question by measuring the OREs in a set of face recognition
tasks, and testing whether these OREs are correlated with each other. Participants
performed different tasks probing (1) face recognition, (2) holistic processing, (3)
processing of configural information, and (4) processing of featural information for
both own- and other-race faces. Their contact with other-race people was also assessed
with a questionnaire. The results show significant OREs in tasks testing face memory
and processing of configural information, but not in tasks testing either holistic
processing or processing of featural information. Importantly, there was no cross-task
correlation between any of the measured OREs. Moreover, the level of other-race contact
predicted only the OREs obtained in tasks testing face memory and processing of configural
information. These results indicate that these various cross-race differences originate
from different aspects of face processing, in contrary to the view that the ORE in
face recognition is due to cross-race differences in terms of holistic processing.