Cross-race Effect - Theoretical Approaches - Cross-Race Effect and Emotion Recognition

Cross-Race Effect and Emotion Recognition

A meta-analysis of several studies about emotion recognition in facial expressions revealed that persons could recognize and interpret the emotional facial expression of a person of their own race faster and better than of a person of other races. These findings apply to all races in the same way. Some studies show that other races, compared to one’s own race, have differently shaped faces and different details within a facial expression. This makes it difficult for members of other races to decode emotional expressions. In August 2009, the Journal of Current Biology reported on experiments showing that, for example, Chinese people do not look at the mouth of a person to determine his emotion. In Western cultures, however, anger and sadness is often displayed via the shape of the mouth. This shows how a person can feel they cannot "read" the faces of other cultures. Inner-brain processes also originally hinder the correct decoding and storage of faces of other races. That is why one often has the feeling that people of other races "all look alike". Over time these perceptional processes change and adapt and the Cross-Race-Effect diminishes.

Another study that supports cross-race identification occurs in inner-brain processes is a study done by Goldinger, He, and Papesh in 2009. Forty Caucasian students from Arizona State University participated in the study. These participants were presented with fifty-two pictures. There were 26 Caucasian faces and 26 Japanese faces in these pictures. The faces were approximately the same size as real faces when they were displayed on a monitor. The eye movements of the participants were then monitored as they viewed the pictures. A chin rest maintained the participants’ viewing angle, and the path of both eyes was continuously monitored throughout the entirety of the study. This study supported the idea of cross-race effect, since the participants all showed superior identification with the faces of people of the same race.