Author(s)

Ana Carolina Monnerat Fioravanti-Bastos^1*, Alberto Filgueiras², J. Landeira-Fernandez²

¹Psychology Department, Federal Fluminense University, Rio das Ostras, Brazil.
²Psychology Department, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The Other-Race Effect has been confirmed by several experimental studies, in which the individual has greater difficulty in recognizing the faces of races that are different from their own. Few studies have investigated this effect during the development of the face processing system. The aim of this study was to investigate the development of the Other-Race Effect in Caucasian and Japanese-descendants children born and living in Brazil. Seventy-four children, split into two age groups (5 - 7 and 9 - 11 years of age), were tested. Japanese-descendant children did not present the effect in favor of their own-race faces, whereas Caucasian children demonstrated the effect in both age groups. This indicates that the effect is present early in the development of face recognition and that contact with the faces of another race during childhood dissipates it. These findings suggest that experience with faces from the children’s visual context is crucial for shaping face processing.

Face Recognition, Other-Race Effect, Development, Culture

Fioravanti-Bastos, A. , Filgueiras, A. & Landeira-Fernandez, J. (2014). The Other-Race Effect in Caucasian and Japanese-Descendant Children in Brazil: Evidence of Developmental Plasticity. Psychology, 5, 2073-2083. doi: 10.4236/psych.2014.519210.