Recognizing the Other: Training's Ability to Improve Other Race Individuation

<p>Members of one race or ethnicity are less able to individuate members of another race compared to their own race peers. This phenomenon is known as the other race effect (ORE) or the cross race effect (CRE). Not only are individuals less able to identify members of the other race but they are also more likely to pick those individuals out of a crowd. The categorizationindividuation model predicts that this deficit arises from a lack of motivated individuation; in which members of the other race are remembered at the category level as a prototype while own race members are remembered by name with individual characteristics. Discrimination training regimes derived from animal research for use in humans have demonstrated efficacy at improving discrimination of novel stimuli after several hours of training because participants are motivated to remember the face as an individual. The current study tested a shortened individuation training program using twelve own race/other race stimuli paired with names or letters. A go/no-go task was used to measure transfer of individuation ability. The present research demonstrates that a regimen as short as described is not sufficient to improve recognition. Future directions for research are discussed in consideration of tentative results including modifications of both the training task and transfer test.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science in Experimental Psychology (M.S.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis (open access)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Psychology

Year dc:date.available

2013

Author dc:creator

• Rose, W. Grady

Contributors dc:contributor

• Bradley Sturz
• Ty Boyer

• ETD
• Other race effect
• Individuation training
• Perceptual expertise
• Motivation
• Bias
• Psychology
• Race and Ethnicity

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/47

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-1047