Citation

Murphy DH, Silaj KM, Schwartz ST, Rhodes MG, Castel AD. Memory 2021; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/09658211.2021.1999982

PMID

34756154

Abstract

People tend to better remember same-race faces relative to other-race faces (an "own-race" bias). We examined whether the own-race bias extends to associative memory, particularly in the identification and recall of information paired with faces. In Experiment 1, we presented white participants with own- and other-race faces which either appeared alone or accompanied by a label indicating whether the face was a "criminal" or a "victim".

RESULTS revealed an own-race facial recognition advantage regardless of the presence of associative information. In Experiment 2, we again paired same- and other-race faces with either "criminal" or "victim" labels, but rather than a recognition test, participants were asked to identify whether each face had been presented as a criminal or a victim. White criminals were better categorised than Black criminals, but race did not influence the categorisation of victims. In Experiment 3, white participants were presented with same- and other-race faces and asked to remember where the person was from, their occupation, and a crime they committed.

RESULTS revealed a recall advantage for the associative information paired with same-race faces. Collectively, these findings suggest that the own-race bias extends to the categorisation and recall of information in associative memory.

Language: en

Keywords

associative memory; face-information binding; facial recognition; Own-race bias