Reducing the other-race effect through caricatures

We recognize faces from our own race better than those from another race. Although the relative contribution of different mechanisms (e.g. contact vs. attention) remains elusive, it is generally agreed that the other-race effect results from the fact that discriminatory facial features are race-dependent. Previous research has also shown that facial recognition improves when viewers are first familiarized with faces whose most distinctive features have been caricaturized. In this study, we sought to determine the extent to which familiarization with caricaturized faces could also be used to reduce other-race effects. Using an old/new face recognition paradigm, Caucasian subjects were first familiarized with a set of faces from multiple races, and then asked to recognize those faces among a set of confounders. Participants who were familiarized with and then asked to recognize veridical versions of the faces showed a significant other-race effect on Indian faces. In contrast, participants who were familiarized with caricaturized versions of the same faces, and then asked to recognize their veridical versions, showed no other-race effects on Indian faces. This result suggests that caricaturization may be used to help individuals focus their attention to features that are useful for recognition of other-race faces.