Can I see your passport please? Perceptual discrimination of own-and other-race faces

Abstract

Psychological research has consistently demonstrated that individuals are better at discriminating faces of their own race when compared with faces of another, less familiar race. Given the racial/ethnic diversity of individuals screened by security personnel at transportation and border checkpoints, it is important to understand whether the cross-race effect may play a role in simultaneous perceptual discrimination tasks that mimic such screening operations. Three experiments assessed the deleterious effects of cross-racial identification in this context. Results demonstrated greater discrimination accuracy for own- versus other-race faces, and a propensity for screeners to be overconfident in their decisions, particularly for other-race persons. Further, perceived age differences between the target and his identification photo and the use of a disguise were found to moderate cross-race effects during this task.