Work

Does attending to the nose vs. eyes reduce the cross-race recognition deficit? A systematic test

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: People typically demonstrate poorer recognition for faces from racial outgroups compared to ingroups, a phenomenon known as the cross-race recognition deficit (CRD). In the present research, we tested one influential account of this effect: the diagnostic-features model. This model proposes that, through experience, the perceptual system becomes tuned to race-specific diagnostic features (e.g., eyes for White faces, nose for Black faces), and that directing attention to these features can reduce the CRD. We systematically tested this prediction across five studies ( N = 736) using face stimuli drawn from six databases. In Studies 1 to 4, White (Portuguese) participants completed old/new recognition tasks with both White and Black faces, using either fixation crosses (Studies 1, 2, 4) or explicit word cues (Study 3) to direct attention to the eyes or nose. Study 5 extended the design in three ways: it recruited UK-born participants, included both White and Black perceivers, and used both male and female faces, thereby more closely aligning the design with the original studies while adding methodological improvements. Across all five studies, we consistently observed the CRD, but found no credible evidence that directing attention to putatively diagnostic features modulated the CRD, with Bayes factors providing strong evidence against this effect. The absence of a fixation effect held equally for White and Black perceivers and for male and female faces. Together, these findings are difficult to reconcile with the diagnostic-features account as originally formulated, while remaining compatible with the more limited possibility that face individuation relies on more similar information across racial groups than the account assumes.

Source: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2026.104958