Work

The Effect of Face Masks on the Recognition of Own‐ and Other‐Race Faces

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: ABSTRACT The other race‐effect (ORE), the tendency to identify more accurately own‐ than other‐race faces, is typically attributed to diminished holistic or configural processing for other‐race faces. However, other accounts suggest that the ORE can be mediated when observers specifically focus on particular facial features. For example, Black observers do not show an ORE for White faces when they attend to the eye region. This study examines these accounts when surgical face masks naturally occlude the lower region of the face, which may both disrupt holistic processing and facilitate or hamper selective feature processing, dependent on the race of the face. Overall, our experiments showed that face masks disrupted the identification of both own‐ and other‐race faces. In addition, internal meta‐analyses showed that this effect was slightly larger for own‐ than other‐race faces, providing more support for the holistic processing account of the ORE.

Source: Applied Cognitive Psychology

DOI: 10.1002/acp.70062

Authors: Alejandro J. Estudillo, Chang Hong Liu, Emma Portch

Institution: Bournemouth University

Language: English

Topic: Face Recognition and Perception

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

SDG: Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $2,900