VISUAL COGNITION, 2006, 14 (1), 55 73

Same-race faces are perceived more holistically thanother-race faces
Caroline Michel
Unité Cognition et Développement & Laboratoire de Neurophysiologie,
Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)

Roberto Caldara
Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow, UK

Bruno Rossion
Unité Cognition et Développement & Laboratoire de Neurophysiologie,
Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)

People are better at recognizing same- than other-race faces but the theoreticalexplanation of this phenomenon is still controversial. Here we tested the hypothesisthat the ‘‘other-race effect’’ is related to a reduced ability to encode configuralinformation on other-race faces. Caucasian and Asian participants had to match
whole faces to isolated facial features, or onto whole faces differing by a single feature,
on both Caucasian and Asian faces. Participants performed better with whole faces ascompared to isolated features, demonstrating a ‘‘holistic processing’’ of faces (Tanaka& Farah, 1993). For Caucasian participants, this ‘‘whole/ part advantage’’ wasobserved only for Caucasian faces. Asian participants who had been living for about ayear among Caucasians had a comparable whole/part advantage regardless the raceof the faces. These results indicate that same-race faces are processed more holisticallythan other-race faces, as a result of experience. However, despite processing
Caucasian faces as holistically as Asian faces in this paradigm, Asian subjects stillpresented a large other-race effect. This observation suggests that holistic encoding
may be a necessary step in order to be able to recognize other-race faces efficiently, butthat it is by no means sufficient to overcome the other-race face effect.
Please address all correspondence to: Caroline Michel, Unité Cognition et Développement,
UCL, 10 Place du Cardinal Mercier, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Email:caroline.michel@psp.u-cl.ac.be
We thank Olivier Corneille, Raymond Bruyer, and three anonymous reviewers for theircomments and suggestions on a previous version of this paper. We also thank Xiao-Hu Peng forproviding the photographs of Chinese people. This work was supported by a grant ARC 01/06267 (Communauté Francaise de Belgique *Actions de Recherche Concertées), a postdoctoral
fellowship provided by the Swiss National Science Foundation (RC), and the National Fund of
Scientific Research (FNRS) Belgium (CM & BR).
http://www.psypress.com/viscog# 2006 Psychology Press Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/13506280500158761

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It is well known that same-race (SR) faces are better remembered than otherrace (OR) faces, a phenomenon often reported in the literature as the‘‘otherrace effect’’ (for a recent review see Meissner & Brigham, 2001). The other-race
effect is a robust phenomenon that has been empirically demonstrated withindifferent racial groups (Shepherd, 1981) using a wide range of paradigms (e.g.,
Brigham, Maas, Snyder, & Spaudling, 1982; Cross, Cross, & Daly, 1971;
Lindsay, Jack, & Christian, 1991; Malpass, Erksine, & Vaughn, 1988; Walker& Tanaka, 2003). However, its theoretical explanation is still debated(Meissner & Brigham, 2001). It is generally acknowledged that the differencein amount of visual experience people have with same- and other-race faces
may account for the OR effect (Chance, Turner, & Goldstein, 1982; Dehon &Brédart, 2001; Elliott, Wills, & Goldstein, 1973; Goldstein & Chance, 1985;
Levin, 2000; Meissner & Brigham, 2001; Sangrigoli & de Schonen, 2004;
Walker & Tanaka, 2003). However, how visual experience affects theprocessing of same-race and other-race faces has yet to be determined.
An influential hypothesis about the other-race effect states that it would
result from a reduced ability to extract configural information from faces withwhich we have less experience (Fallshore & Schooler, 1995; Rhodes, Tan, Brake,& Taylor, 1989). Faces constitute a highly homogeneous class of visual stimuli(Damasio, Damasio, & van Hoesen, 1982; Diamond & Carey, 1986), sharing
the same features*eyes, nose, mouth, . . .*in the same basic configuration,
but differing according to the shape and surface cues of these features, as well as
to the relations between them (the second-order configuration; Diamond& Carey, 1986). Since the initial suggestion by Yin (1969), a large number ofstudies have shown that the coding of these relationships between features isimportant to process faces adequately, and may subtend a number of wellknown empirical phenomena observed on face stimuli. For instance, thenotorious face inversion effect (FIE), namely the fact that turning faces upsidedown impairs their encoding disproportionately relative to the inversion ofother objects (Valentine, 1988; Yin, 1969; for a review see Rossion & Gauthier,2002) is due to a loss of the ability to encode configural information (e.g., Freire,
Lee, & Symons, 2000; Leder & Bruce, 2000; Rhodes, Brake, & Atkinson,
1993; Searcy & Bartlett, 1996). Other empirical observations such as the ‘‘facecomposite effect’’ (Young, Hellawell, & Hay, 1987), the whole/part advantage(Tanaka & Farah, 1993), the ‘‘caricature effect’’ (Rhodes, Brennan, & Carey,1987), and the ‘‘Thatcher illusion’’ (Thompson, 1980) have also been related
to the processing of configural information (for a recent review on face
configuration see Maurer, Le Grand, & Mondloch, 2002). There is evidence
that this configural processing of faces *and possibly other object categories(Diamond & Carey, 1986; Gauthier & Tarr, 1997) *is related to our visualexperience (Carey, 1992; Le Grand, Mondloch, Maurer, & Brent, 2001).
The hypothesis of a differential configural coding between same-race andother-race faces has been tested previously using the FIE (Rhodes et al., 1989;

HOLISTIC PROCESSING OF SAME- AND OTHER-RACE FACES

57

Sangrigoli & de Schonen, 2004; Valentine, 1991; Valentine & Bruce, 1986).
Rhodes and colleagues (1989) hypothesized that if SR faces are processedmore configurally than OR faces, a larger FIE should be observed for SR
faces. While these authors confirmed their hypothesis (see also Sangrigoli & deSchonen, 2004) other studies have yielded conflicting results: A larger FIE for
OR faces than for SR faces (Valentine, 1991; Valentine & Bruce, 1986), or nodifference at all (Buckout & Regan, 1988). Thus, the hypothesis of adifferential configural coding between SR and OR faces is not fully supported
by empirical data and needs further investigation. Moreover, testing the
hypothesis of a better configural processing in SR faces through the FIE has
proved difficult because upside-down inversion is thought to disrupt all typesof configural information, including first- and second-order configuration, as
well as holistic processing (Maurer et al., 2002; Purcell & Stewart, 1988)1.
Inverting faces also disrupts the processing of local cues defined by shape (e.g.,
Rhodes et al., 1993), even though local cues defined by surface properties(texture, colour) seem unaffected (Leder & Bruce, 2000). In addition, the FIE
represents only an indirect way to test the configural hypothesis since theconfiguration of the face stimulus is not explicitly manipulated.
The goal of the present study was to test directly the hypothesis of adifferential configural processing of SR and OR faces and to investigate therelationship between this configural processing and the other-race effect. To
this aim, we tested one type of configural processing, clearly defined in theliterature, namely the concept of ‘‘holistic processing’’, according to whichfaces are processed as a whole (or a template) in which individual features areunparsed and interdependent (Davidoff & Donnelly, 1990; Homa, Haver, &Schwartz, 1976; Sergent, 1984). In a classical paradigm, Tanaka and Farah(1993) used an old/new recognition task in which participants first learned aset of faces with associated names, and then had to recognize the features ofthe faces that they had seen before. These features were presented either in thecontext of the whole face, or in isolation. In these conditions, participants
were better at recognizing a feature presented in the facial setting relative to its
presentation in isolation. This effect is referred to the ‘‘whole/part advantage’’and is taken as evidence that faces are processed as a whole. The whole/partadvantage has been reported in several studies using long-term memory tasks(Donnelly & Davidoff, 1999; Tanaka & Sengco, 1997) or perceptual matching1

Several terms are used in the literature to point to configural processing of faces (seeMaurer et al., 2002; Rossion & Gauthier, 2002). Besides the general first order configuration(i.e., the basic configuration of the features *the two symmetrical eyes above the central noseand the mouth, etc. ; Diamond & Carey, 1986) shared by all faces there are at least twoconceptual definitions of configuration in the literature: Holistic processing (i.e., processing of aface as a whole/gestalt; Davidoff & Donnelly, 1990; Tanaka & Farah, 1993) and second-orderconfiguration (i.e., the distances among features; e.g., Rhodes et al., 1993)

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MICHEL, CALDARA, ROSSION

tasks (Davidoff & Donnelly, 1990; Farah, Wilson, Drain, & Tanaka, 1998;
Palermo & Rhodes, 2002; Tanaka, Kiefer, & Bukach, 2004).
Here, we investigated the configural/holistic processing of SR and OR
faces by using the whole/part advantage paradigm in a two-alternative
forced-choice (2AFC) delayed matching task. The task required Asian and
Caucasian participants to discriminate the features of SR and OR faces,
presented either in the context of the whole face or in isolation. We expectedthat the whole/part advantage would be larger for SR faces as compared to
OR faces, in agreement with the proposal that experience with SR faces leadto an advantage in processing configural information. In addition, allparticipants performed an old/new recognition task with whole faces,
designed to measure the other-race effect.

METHOD
Participants
Twenty-two Caucasian and twenty-four Asian participants took part in the
study. However, the data of four participants were dropped from the analysis
because their overall accuracy was below 60%. As a result, 21 participants
for each race formed our group of subjects. Caucasian participants (16females/5 males; mean age  21.67 years) were undergraduate students in
Psychology who participated for class credits and research assistants of thedepartment. Most of Asian participants (18 females/3 males; mean age 
23.76 years) were from China (18; plus 3 from Taiwan) and had been living
in Europe for 12 months and 2 days on average. Most of them were recruitedin a Chinese Student Association in Belgium and they were paid for their
participation. All participants had a normal or corrected-to-normal vision.

StimuliSeventy-four Caucasian and seventy-four Chinese faces were used as stimuli
in total (half males, half females). All faces were young students (between 18
and 25 years old) unfamiliar to the participants, either from Belgium, orfrom China (Beijing) and all photographs were coloured full-front face views
with external features removed (Figure 1), posing with a neutral expression.
Two sets of 40 faces of each race were used to measure the other-race effectin all participants. The remaining faces (34 of each race) were used to test theholistic processing of faces (‘‘holistic processing test’’).
For the ‘‘whole’’ condition of the ‘‘holistic processing test’’, a distractor
face was created for each 34 faces (by race), using Adobe Photoshop 7.0, by
replacing the eyes, or the mouth, or the nose from the target with therespective feature of another face. The individual features were then

HOLISTIC PROCESSING OF SAME- AND OTHER-RACE FACES

59

Figure 1.

Examples of pairs of whole faces and isolated features (Asian and Caucasian) used in theholistic processing test.

extracted from each of the target faces and the distractors (or altered faces)
to be used in the ‘‘part’’ condition (Figure 1). Thus, the physical difference
between a target and its distractor was identical for the two conditions,‘‘whole’’ and ‘‘part’’. Each target subtended a visual angle of 4.2585.428.
The two test faces subtended approximately 485.88 and isolated features
were all of 3.2680.418. Stimuli were displayed on a computer screen using
the presentation software E-Prime 1.1, on a white background.

Procedure
All participants were tested individually, in a quiet dimly lit room. They
performed a task designed to measure the other-race effect before completing the ‘‘holistic processing test’’. Both were administered within a single
session of about 40 min. At the end of the experiment, all participants filled
out a questionnaire about the amount of experience they had with OR faces(e.g., the number of people of the other-race that they know personally, thenumber of months they have spent in Europe, etc.).
The other-race effect: Old *new recognition task. In the study phase,participants were presented with 20 faces of each race and were instructed to
encode them visually because they would be required to recognize them later.
Each face remained on the centre of the screen for 3 s, with an interstimulusinterval (ISI) of 1 s.
In the test phase, which followed immediately the study phase, participants performed a forced-choice recognition test on 40 faces presented
individually. The 20 target faces had to be identified as accurate and as fast
as possible among 20 distractor faces. Each face was presented until thesubject’s response, or for a maximum of 2 s. Participants responded bypressing one of two keys on a keyboard to indicate if they had previously
seen the face or not. The experiment began with six practice items (three

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MICHEL, CALDARA, ROSSION

trials of each race). Participants did not know the ratio of old and new faces,and did not receive any feedback for their responses. Faces were blocked byrace. After completing the old/new task for a set of one race of faces,
participants learned the other set of faces (other-race). The order of race facepresentation was counterbalanced across participants.
Holistic processing test. The task used was a 2AFC matching test,
adapted from the whole/part paradigm of Tanaka and Farah (1993). In eachtrial, participants were first resented with a target face on the centre of thescreen during 500 ms. The second stimulus appeared 1050 ms later, following asequence of two blank screens (300 ms) and a mask inserted in between (450ms). It was either a pair of faces (whole condition) or a pair of features (partcondition), presented side by side (Figure 1). One of them was the target(whole condition) or an isolated feature taken from the target (part condition),and the other was a distractor. Crucially, the distractor differed from the target
by only one feature (eyes, nose, or mouth). Participants were required to
identify the target face (in the whole condition) or the target’s feature (in thepart condition) as fast as possible by pressing the left or right of two keys. The
faces/features remained on the screen for maximum 3 s. Trials were spaced by1000 ms. Twelve practice trials (six trials for each race) were presented before
the beginning of the experiment. The left and right positions of the target
stimuli were counterbalanced across test items and participants received no
feedback for their responses. Only ‘‘eyes’’ trials were used in the analyses
because of the dramatic increase in error rates observed when faces differ only
by mouth or nose (see Joseph & Tanaka, 2002; Pellicano & Rhodes, 2003;
Tanaka & Farah, 1993; Wenger & Townsend, 2000). The few ‘‘noses’’ and‘‘mouth’’ trials were used as catch trials to avoid participants focusing theirattention on the eyes only, and were not analysed further.
Participants were presented with two blocks of 68 trials, one Asian and
one Caucasian, presented twice each. Among these 68 trials, there were 40
valid trials (20 in each condition) and 28 catch trials (14 in each condition).
This results in a total of 160 valid trials.
Half of participants began with a block of Caucasian faces (40 items20
catch trials) and the other half with a block of Asian faces, with Asian and
Caucasian blocks of stimuli counterbalanced throughout the experiment.

Data analysis
For the measure of the other-race effect for each participant, d?was used as ameasure of recognition accuracy for Caucasian and Asian faces for eachparticipant. Two d? values were computed for each participant, one for
Caucasian and one for Asian faces. Derived from the signal detection theory(Swets, Tanner, & Birdsall, 1961), d? is generally used to measure theHOLISTIC PROCESSING OF SAME- AND OTHER-RACE FACES

61

sensitivity of participants to detect the presence of a target during old/new
recognition tests. A d? near to 0 corresponds to the chance level, and a largerd? value indicates a better performance. This statistical measure has been
applied in previous studies of the OR effect (e.g., Carroo, 1986; Chance
et al., 1982; Goldstein & Chance, 1985; Malpass & Kravitz, 1969; Shepherd,
Deregowski, & Ellis, 1974). Two d? values were computed for eachparticipant, one for Caucasian and one for Asian faces. Two separate twoway repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA) were performed ond?scores and on correct response times respectively, with face race (Asian,
Caucasian) as within-subjects factor and participant’s race (Asian, Caucasian) as between-subjects factor. For the holistic processing task (2AFC),accuracy rates and response times were submitted to separate 2 2 2
ANOVAs for participants (F l) and items (F 2) with the race (Asianvs. Caucasian) and the type (whole vs. part) of stimuli as within-subjects
factors, and the race of participants as between-subjects factor. Correlation
analyses were performed to test the relationship between the otherrace effect, the whole/part advantage and the interracial experience ofparticipants.

RESULTSThe other-race face effectAccuracy. Main effects of participant’s race and face race were notsignificant, F (1, 40) B1 for both effects, but the interaction between these
two factors was highly significant, F (1, 40)  15.42, p B.001. As expected,
Caucasian and Asian participants were better at recognizing same- thanother-race faces (Figure 2). For Caucasian participants, mean d? values

Figure 2. d? scores for the old/new face recognition test of Caucasian and Asian faces in Caucasianand Asian participants. Error bars represent standard errors of the mean.

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MICHEL, CALDARA, ROSSION

were 1.88 (SE:9 .28) and 1.35 (SE:9 .23) for Caucasian and Asian faces,
respectively, post hoc t(20)  3.048, p B.05. Asian participants presented
the opposite pattern, with scores of 1.97 (SE:9 .26) for Asian faces and 1.21
(SE:9.13) for Caucasian faces, t(20)  2.73, pB.05. The magnitudeof the other-race face effect that is, the difference between d? for SR and d?
for OR faces) was not different between the two groups of participants,t (40)  0.728.
Response times. The mean response times for correct responses wascomputed for each participant in each race of faces. There was no main effectof face race or participant’s race, Fl(l, 40)  3.02 and 1.1, respectively)
and the interaction between the two factors did not reach significance,
F (l,40)  3.02.

Holistic processing test
Accuracy. There was a highly significant effect of condition, F l(l, 40) 
48.67, p B.001; F 2(1, 38)  70.64, p B.001, features being recognized betterin the context of the whole face than in isolation (  whole/part advantage;
Figure 3). There was also a main effect of face race, F l(l, 40)  24.68, pB.001; F 2(l, 38)  7.55, pB.01, Asian faces being recognized better than
Caucasian faces overall (Figure 3). However, this effect was qualified by asignificant interaction between condition and face race, F l(l, 40)  10.34,
p B.001; F 2(1, 38)  5.59, p B.05. Asian participants were better with
Asian faces, both in the part, t 1(20 )  4.31, pB.01; t2(19)  2.29, p B.05,
and in the whole, t1(20 )  4.01, p B.001; t2(19)  2.12, p B.05, conditions. Caucasian participants displayed equal performance for Asian and
Caucasian whole faces, t1(20)  1.35; t 2(19)  0.88, but were better atrecognizing Asian than Caucasian parts, t 1(20)  3, p B.01; t 2(19)  2.56,
p B.05, showing the expected larger drop of performance for the partcondition with SR faces.
Most interestingly for our hypothesis, three-way interaction between
participant’s race, face race, and condition reached significance, F l(l, 40) 
4.895, p B.05; F 2(1, 38)  2.94, p .09. A two-way ANOVA conductedin each racial group independently revealed a significant Face race 
Condition interaction in Caucasian participants, F l(l, 20)  17.26, p B.001;
F 2(1, 19)  7.02, p B.05, but not in Asian participants, F l(l, 20)  0.603;
F 2(1, 19)  0.26. Caucasian participants were significantly better at recognizing Caucasian parts in the facial setting (81.43%; SE:92.89) than inisolation (66.78%; SE:92), post hoc t1(20)  7.77, p B.001; t 2(19)  4.67,
p B.001. However, they did not show this whole/ part advantage for
Asian faces (79.04%, SE:92.74; 75.35%, SE:91.91; respectively),t 1(20 )  1.27; t2(19)  1.69 (see Figure 3). Performance of Asian partici-HOLISTIC PROCESSING OF SAME- AND OTHER-RACE FACES

63

Figure 3.

Recognition accuracy of (a) Caucasian and (b) Asian participants for whole faces andisolated features in the 2AFC matching test. Error bars represent standard errors of the mean.

pants was better for whole faces than for isolated parts, whether they
were presented with Asian faces (86.19%, SE:92; and 76.67%, SE:92.55
for whole and parts, respectively), t1(20 )  4.09, p B.01; t 2(19)  6.24,
p B.001, or with Caucasian faces (78.93%, SE:92; and 67.14%, SE:91.7,
respectively), t1(20 )  4.61, p B.001; t2(19)  5,p B .001.
Response times. On response times (RTs), the main effect of condition,
F l(l, 40)  32.64, p B.001; t2(1, 38)  8.64, p B.01, was significant, indicating that whole faces were processed more quickly than isolated parts(Table 1). However, the three-way interaction of interest did not reachsignificance, F l(l, 40), p B1; F 2(l, 38), p B1.09.

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MICHEL, CALDARA, ROSSIONTABLE 1
Mean response times (ms) for Caucasian and Asian
stimuli (whole faces and isolated features) in Caucasianand Asianparticipants, standard errors of the means arereported in parenthesis
Caucasian participants

Asian participants

Caucasian faces
Whole faces
Isolated features

1071 (65.19)
1159 (57.02)

1122 (37.15)
1268 (39.89)

Asian faces
Whole faces
Isolated features

1108 (63.29)
1152 (53.04)

1064 (35.60)
1156 (40.70)

Correlation analyses
Although Asian participants showed an equally large whole/part advantage
for Asian and Caucasian faces (Figure 3), they presented a significant otherrace effect in the old/new recognition task, at least as large as the effectobserved in Caucasian participants (Figure 2). The relationship between thetwo measures (whole/part advantage and other-race effect) was tested by acorrelation analysis. The other-race effect was calculated for each participant
by subtracting the d? for OR faces from the d? for SR faces. The whole/partadvantage was calculated for each participant by subtracting the score in thepart condition from the score in the whole condition. Thus, a large scorereflects an important whole/ part advantage. The result of the subtraction
between the whole/part advantage for OR and SR faces was not correlatedwith the amplitude of the other-race effect, in none of the two groups(Pearson’s correlation coefficient  .059, n.s., in Asian and .061, n.s.,in Caucasian participants, respectively).

Interracial experience
The questionnaire on interracial experience measured the amount ofexperience each subject had with OR faces. For Asian participants,
experience was quantified as the number of months that they had spent inEurope. For Caucasian participants (who had no experience in an Asian
country) the experience with Asian faces was quantified as the number of
Asian people that the participants knew personally. Correlations between themagnitude of the other-race effect and the amount of interracial experience
were performed on both groups of participants. Interestingly, the correlation
between the magnitude of the other-race effect in Asian participants and thenumber of months (range: 1.5 month; max. 30 months) that they had spent inHOLISTIC PROCESSING OF SAME- AND OTHER-RACE FACES

65

Europe was marginally significant (Pearson’s correlation coefficient  .357, p  .056). However, in Caucasian participants, the magnitude of
the other-race effect was not correlated with the number of Asian
acquaintances (range: min. 0; max. 9; Pearson’s correlation coefficient .052, n.s.).
Correlations between the amount of interracial experience and themagnitude of the holistic processing for OR faces revealed that in Caucasians,
the amount of experience with Asian faces was significantly correlated withthe amount of holistic processing of these faces (Pearson’s correlation
coefficient  .519, p  .008). However, in Asian participants, the amountof interracial experience was not correlated with the magnitude of the holistic
processing for OR faces (Pearson’s correlation coefficient  .226, p .162).

DISCUSSION
The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis of a differential
configural processing for same- and other-race faces in the theoreticalframework of the other-race effect. In a nutshell, our results support the
hypothesis of a larger holistic processing for same-race faces. However,Asian subjects with a limited living experience among Caucasian faces wereable to process these faces holistically, and yet presented a robust other-race
effect as measured independently. This last observation questions the natureof the relationship between the other-race effect and the differential ability toprocess same- and other-race faces holistically.
The hypothesis of a differential configural coding between SR and OR
faces was tested in previous studies using the ‘‘face inversion effect’’ (FIE;
Yin, 1969) but has led to inconsistent results (Buckout & Regan, 1988;
Rhodes et al., 1989; Sangrigoli & de Schonen, 2004; Valentine, 1991;
Valentine & Bruce, 1986), which may be due in part to the different methods
used in these studies. For instance, Valentine and Bruce (1986) tested only
Caucasian participants with two races of faces and equated the performanceat processing SR and OR faces by presenting the latter for longer times,
whereas Rhodes et al. (1989) tested two groups of participants of different
races and presented them in the same conditions. More generally, as stated in
the introduction, the FIE may not be adequate to test the hypothesis of abetter configural processing in SR faces, as upside-down inversion disrupts
all types of configural processing (Maurer et al., 2002), as well as local shapecues (e.g., Rhodes et al., 1993). Here, we tested directly the hypothesis of adifferential configural processing between SR and OR faces by using thewhole/part advantage paradigm (Davidoff & Donnelly, 1990; Tanaka &Farah, 1993). We replicated the whole/part advantage effect in accuracy rates
and response times (see Figure 3 and Table 1): Participants were better andfaster at discriminating facial features presented in a whole context than the

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MICHEL, CALDARA, ROSSION

same features presented in isolation. Previous studies reporting the whole/part advantage (for faces or other objects) either did not measure or report
response times (Davidoff & Donnelly, 1990; Donnelly & Davidoff, 1999;
Joseph & Tanaka, 2002; Palermo & Rhodes, 2002; Tanaka & Farah, 1993;
Tanaka & Sengco, 1997) or demonstrated the whole/part advantage only inaccuracy, with a possible speed-accuracy tradeoff (participants faster withisolated parts; e.g., Gauthier & Tarr, 1997; Gauthier, Williams, Tarr, &Tanaka, 1998; Tanaka et al., 2004).
Most interestingly, in agreement with our hypothesis, a significant interaction was observed between the whole/part advantage effect in accuracy, the raceof participant and the race of face. That is, Caucasian participants processed
Caucasian faces more holistically than Asian faces. However, Asian participants presented a comparable whole/part advantage for Asian and Caucasian
faces, indicating that they processed both race of faces as holistically.
The larger holistic processing observed for SR faces in Caucasianparticipants supports the hypothesis of a relationship between the ORE andan inability to process other-race faces holistically (Rhodes et al., 1989). A
similar conclusion was drawn in a recent study, which also used the whole/partadvantage paradigm (Tanaka et al., 2004). However, in this last study, theauthors tested Asian participants who had been living amongst Caucasian
populations for their entire life and reported a larger amount of interactions
with Caucasians than with Asians. Here, our two groups of participants
had significantly more experience with same-race faces. Most importantly,
Tanaka and colleagues (2004) did not measure the other-race effect, andcould thus not test the relationship between this effect and the differential
holistic processing observed. The general goal of the present study was tocontribute to an explanation of the other-race effect. To this aim, we measured
the holistic processing in two groups of participants who showed an equallylarge advantage in processing same-race faces as compared to other-race faces.
The pattern of results observed in the present study with Caucasianparticipants fits perfectly with the holistic or configural account of the ORE(Rhodes et al., 1989), but the results observed with Asian participantscannot be accounted so easily in this framework. Indeed, these participants
processed both races of faces as holistically, and yet presented an equallylarge other-race effect as Caucasian subjects. How can this paradox beresolved? First, let us consider why Asian participants in our study process
Caucasian faces holistically, before addressing the question of why thisability does not appear to help them overcoming their impairment inrecognizing other-race faces.
There are at least three possible explanations for the holistic processing of
Caucasian faces observed in our Asian participants. First, the short adultvisual experience that these participants had with OR faces (they had been
living amongst Caucasians for about 1 year on average) may have helped

HOLISTIC PROCESSING OF SAME- AND OTHER-RACE FACES

67

them develop the ability to process these faces as a gestalt (holistic
processing). The role of visual experience in leading to holistic processingof (face) stimuli is still debated. On the one hand, holistic processing isobserved in young children (e.g., Carey & Diamond, 1994; Cohen & Cashon,
2001; Pellicano & Rhodes, 2003; Tanaka, Kay, Grinnell, Stansfield, &Szechter, 1998) and does not appear to increase between 6 and 10 years old(Carey & Diamond, 1994; Joseph & Tanaka, 2002; Tanaka et al., 1998).
Further, it can be observed for nonface objects such as chairs, houses,
Greebles, or cars in novices (Davidoff & Don nelly, 1990; Donnelly &Davidoff, 1999; Gauthier & Tarr, 1997; Tanaka & Gauthier, 1997).
Accordingly, it has been suggested that holistic processing depends moreon the complexity of the stimulus than on the amount of visual experience:
We would naturally process holistically stimuli belonging to visuallyhomogeneous categories (Gauthier & Tarr, 1997; Tanaka & Gauthier,1997). On the other hand, several sources of evidence suggest a role ofvisual experience in the development of the holistic processing, since theeffect is not observed for faces between 2 and 5 years (Schwarzer, 2002) but
appears at 6 years old (Tanaka et al., 1998), and is usually larger in experts
compared to novices for nonface object categories (Gauthier & Tarr, 1997;
Gauthier et al., 2002). A recent study using the composite paradigm (Younget al., 1987) also suggests that early (before 6 months) visual experience isnecessary for the normal development of holistic processing in adults (LeGrand et al., 2004). Regarding the data of this paper, the link between visualexperience with other-race faces and holistic processing of these faces isreinforced several observations. First, as a group, Caucasian subjects did notprocess Asian faces holi-stically. Second, for these subjects, there was asignificant correlation between holistic processing for Asian faces and thenumber of their Asian acquaintances. The absence of the relationshipbetween holistic processing and the amount of interracial experience in our
sample of Asian people may be explained by the nature of the measure of theinterracial experience in these participants: The number of months they had
spent in Europe may reflect more the quantity than the quality of contact
with other-race faces. To sum up, our results suggest that a short amount of
adult visual experience may be sufficient to apply holistic mechanisms toother-race faces, a result that extends previous findings of holistic processing
for other-race faces in subjects presenting a lifelong visual experience withthese faces (Tanaka et al., 2004).
An alternative account to the proposal that visual experience subtends
holistic processing of Caucasian faces in Asian participants would be that
our observations are due to a stimulus effect: We would process SR faces
more holi-stically than OR faces, but Caucasian faces would be processed bydefault more holistically than Asian faces. Several factors may account forsuch a stimulus difference, such as the larger exposure to Caucasian faces in

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the media (e.g., widespread diffusion of western movies), or differences inour particular face set that would make the Caucasian faces more prone tobe perceived holistically. Although this alternative explanation is highly
unlikely, it could only be completely ruled out by conducting the same
experiment in Asian people who do not present any living experienceamongst Caucasians.
Finally, an interesting alternative supported by several studies is that
Asian people are generally more ‘‘holistic’’ (i.e., influenced by the context)
than Westerners, as evidenced both in cognitive (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, &Norenzayan, 2001; Peng & Nisbett, 1999) and perceptive tasks (Ji, Peng, &Nisbett, 2000; Kitayama, Duffy, Kawamura, & Larsen, 2003) on nonface
stimuli. For example, it has been shown that Easterners rely more on‘‘dialectical reasoning’’ than Westerners (Nisbett et al., 2001; Peng &Nisbett, 1999). At the perceptual level, Kitayama and colleagues (2003)
highlighted a difference between Easterners and Westerners in the degree ofattention paid to objects versus the context in which the objects were
presented. Participants in their study were presented with a line in asurrounding frame and they were required to draw an identical line in asecond frame. The line had to be drawn either in absolute length, or inproportion to the height of the surrounding frame. Whereas Westerners’ performances were better in the absolute task, Easterners were more accurate at
reproducing the line in the relative task (Kitayama et al., 2003). According
to the authors, these differences in processing may be due to the different
social systems observed in these two populations (Nisbett et al., 2001). Thus,
it may be that even Asian people without visual experience with OR faces
process these stimuli more holistically than Caucasian people. Given theabsence of correlation between holistic processing and the number of months
spent in Europe by the Asian people tested in the present study, one cannot
fully rule out this hypothesis.
To summarize, we have identified three hypotheses as to why Asian subjects
in our study processed other-race faces holistically. Unlike Caucasianparticipants, Asian participants presented a visual experience at adult age
with other-race faces, supporting the proposal that a short amount of visualexperience is sufficient to apply holistic mechanisms to other-race faces.

The relationship between holistic processing and the ORE
Asian participants were able to process Caucasian faces holistically, yet thisability did not help them to overcome their impairment in recognizing otherrace faces, as shown by their robust other-race effect in the old/new recognition
task. Furthermore, there was no correlation between the differential holistic
processing observed for the two races of faces and the magnitude of the otherrace effect measured independently. Based on this dissociation, one may be

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69

tempted to conclude that the greater holistic processing for same-race faces ascompared to other-race faces does not have much relevance for the other-racerecognition deficit. However, the configural/holistic account of the ORE(Rhodes et al., 1989) is supported here by the observation that Caucasiansubjects, who are impaired at recognizing Asian faces, process these faces lessholistically than Caucasian faces (see also Tanaka et al., 2004). How can thisapparent paradox be reconciled? Bearing in mind that one can only speculate
at this state of our knowledge, we refer to the developmental and neuropsychological face literature to suggest that holistic processing of other-race faces
is a necessary component to be able to discriminate and recognize these faces
adequately, but that it is by no means sufficient.
Even though it is widely acknowledged in the literature that faces arehandled holistically, the relationship between such holistic processing andthe ability to recognize individual faces is not well documented and usually
not discussed in the literature (e.g., Maurer et al., 2002). Impairment inholistic processing of faces, because of a lack of early visual experience (LeGrand et al., 2004) or following brain damage (e.g., Boutsen & Humphreys,
2002; Sergent & Signoret, 1992; Sergent & Villemure, 1989), is associatedwith individual face recognition impairments (Geldart et al., 2002; Sergent &Signoret, 1992; Sergent & Villemure, 1989), suggesting that the ability tohandle faces holistically is a necessary component for face recognition.
However, the developmental face literature suggests that the ability toprocess faces holistically is not sufficient to reach a full level of expertise at
individual face recognition. It has been shown that children as young as 6
years old, or perhaps earlier (Pellicano & Rhodes, 2003; but see Schwarzer,
2002), are able to process faces as holistically as adults (Carey & Diamond,
1994; Pellicano & Rhodes, 2003; Tanaka et al., 1998). Yet, young children of
6 years of age are profoundly deficient at matching faces, especially when
they differ in viewpoint, lighting or clothing (Benton & van Allen, 1973;
Bruce et al., 2000; Carey et al., 1980; Ellis, 1992; Mondloch et al., 2003),
even in matching tasks that eliminate memory demands (Bruce et al., 2000).
This difficulty appears to be due to a deficit at face encoding (Ellis, 1992),
children relying mostly on external features (Campbell et al., 1999; see also
Carey & Diamond, 1977), and failing to extract distances between features,the so-called ‘‘second order configuration’’ (Diamond & Carey, 1986), adequately. Holistic processing and second-order configuration sensitivity arethus both impaired following early deprivation (Le Grand et al., 2001, 2004)
but the former becomes adult-like much earlier (6 years old) than the latter,
which may not be achieved fully until mid-adolescence (Carey, 1992; Carey& Diamond, 1994; Ellis & Ellis, 1994; Mondloch et al., 2002). These last
observations have been considered to support the view that holistic
processing is a prerequisite for normal processing of second-order configuration, allowing efficient individual recognition (Le Grand et al., 2004).

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The developmental face literature provides a good illustration of howholistic processing may be a necessary*and yet not sufficient*component
for the ability to recognize individual faces adequately (Geldart et al., 2002;
Le Grand et al., 2004). In line with this literature, the findings reported in
the present paper on adults processing same- and other-race faces suggestthat the ability to process other-race faces holistically is a necessary step inorder to be able to discriminate and recognize these faces adequately, butthat it is by no means sufficient. More precisely, a short amount of visualexperience with Caucasian faces in adults may have helped Asian participants in our study to develop the ability to process Caucasian faces
holistically, while they still present a marked deficit at recognizing otherrace faces in an individual recognition task.

CONCLUSIONSIn summary, the present study shows that same-race faces are processedmore holistically than other-race faces, and suggest that a short amount ofexperience in adult age may lead to holistic processing of other-race faces.
This ability to process other-race faces holistically may be necessary, but is
not sufficient to overcome individual face recognition impairments withother-race faces, i.e., the other-race effect.

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Manuscript received April 2004
Manuscript accepted March 2005
PrEview proof published online December 2005