Cross-race effect in relational memory: An eye-tracking investigation

The cross-race effect (CRE) is a well-known finding wherein own-race faces are better recognized than other-race faces. By adopting an established relational memory paradigm, I explored the CRE in relational memory and compared it to the more typical CRE in single item memory. In addition to examining behavioral accuracy, eye tracking was implemented to explore the expressions of CRE in eye movements. Participants studied Asian and Caucasian faces superimposed on the background scenes, which were either trial-unique (in Relational task) or held invariant across the presented faces (in Item task). The eye movements were monitored at test. I observed a robust CRE in item task and an absent CRE in relational memory. Eye tracking analysis also reflected the expression of CRE in eye movements in the Item task, but not in the Relational task. Additional eye-movement analyses from the encoding phase of the experiment were conducted to explore the mechanisms behind the reduced CRE in relational memory. I investigated amount of fixation duration and proportion of fixations made to the eyes/mouth regions of own-race and other-race faces, as well as the viewing patterns to background scenes that were associated with own-race and other-race faces.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Ding, Huiyu

Contributors dc:contributor

• Sahakyan, Lili
• Feidermeier, Kara

• Cross-race effect
• memory
• relational memory
• associative memory

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Huiyu Ding

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/116019

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F116019