CROSS-RACE FACIAL RECOGNITION - FAILURE OF THE CONTACT HYPOTHESIS

Two studies were conducted to increase our knowledge of cross-race rec ognition of White and Oriental faces and to test the hypothesis that t he ''cross-race effect'' (inferior facial recognition of other races) is due to lack of contact with the other race. In Experiment 1, White (n = 60) and Oriental (n = 60) university students in Canada attempted to recognize White and Oriental faces in a standard facial recognitio n paradigm. Although the cross-race effect was replicated for false al arms and d', neither perceived similarity nor self-rated contact predi cted recognition accuracy. In Experiment 2, White (n = 92) and Orienta l (n = 115) students from Singapore and Canada were tested. Contact wi th Whites and Orientals differed significantly for students in Singapo re versus Canada but was not related to facial recognition even though the cross-race effect was replicated. On average, 6 predicted effects of the cross-race effect from the two experiments accounted for 10.83 % of the variance, whereas the 18 predicted effects based on the conta ct hypothesis on average accounted for only 0.89% of the variance in f acial recognition. The ''contact hypothesis'' is not a viable explanat ion of the results in studies of cross-race facial recognition. The cr oss-race effect remains unexplained.