I know your face but not where I saw you: context memory is impaired for other-race faces

Psychon Bull Rev. 2008 Jun;15(3):610-4. doi: 10.3758/pbr.15.3.610.

Abstract

People are more likely to falsely identify a face of another race than a face of their own race. When witnesses make identifications, they often need to remember where they have previously encountered a face. Failure to remember the context of an encounter can result in unconscious transference and lead to misidentifications. Forty-five White participants were shown White and Black faces, each presented on one of five backgrounds. The participants had to identify these faces in an old/new recognition test. If participants stated that they had seen a face, they had to identify the context in which the face had originally appeared. Participants made more context errors with Black faces than with White faces. This shows that the own-race bias extends to context memory.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Cognition*
  • Ethnicity*
  • Face*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mental Recall
  • Middle Aged
  • Reaction Time
  • Recognition, Psychology*
  • Visual Perception*