Journal of Vision (2021) 21(12):1, 1–17

1

Rapid saccadic categorization of other-race faces
Peter de Lissa

Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab),
Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg,
Fribourg, Switzerland

Nayla Sokhn

Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab),
Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg,
Fribourg, Switzerland

Sasha Lasrado

Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab),
Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg,
Fribourg, Switzerland

Kanji Tanaka

Faculty of Arts and Science, Kyushu University,
Fukuoka, Japan

Katsumi Watanabe

Faculty of Science and Engineering,
Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Faculty of Arts, Design, and Architecture,
University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Roberto Caldara

Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab),
Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg,
Fribourg, Switzerland

The human visual system is very fast and eﬃcient at
extracting socially relevant information from faces.
Visual studies employing foveated faces haveconsistently reported faster categorization by race
response times for other-race compared with same-racefaces. However, in everyday life we typically encounter
faces outside the foveated visual ﬁeld. In study 1, we
explored whether and how race is categorized
extrafoveally in same- and other-race faces normalized
for low-level properties by tracking eye movements ofWestern Caucasian and East Asian observers in asaccadic response task. The results show that not only
are people sensitive to race in faces presented outside ofcentral vision, but the speed advantage in categorizing
other-race faces occurs astonishingly quickly in as little
as 200 ms. Critically, this visual categorization process
was approximately 300 ms faster than the typical buttonpress responses on centrally presented foveated faces.
Study 2 investigated the genesis of the extrafoveal
saccadic response speed advantage by comparing theinﬂuences of the response modality (button presses andsaccadic responses), as well as the potential
contribution of the impoverished low-spatial frequency

spectrum characterizing extrafoveal visual information
processing. Button press race categorization was not
signiﬁcantly faster with reconstructed retinal-ﬁltered
low spatial frequency faces, regardless of the visual ﬁeld
presentation. The speed of race categorization was
signiﬁcantly boosted only by extrafoveal saccades andnot centrally foveated faces. Race is a potent, rapid, andeﬀective visual signal transmitted by faces used for the
categorization of ingroup/outgroup members. This fast
universal visual categorization can occur outside central
vision, igniting a cascade of social processes.

Introduction
Human diversity in physical appearance has beena source of contemplation and curiosity since thebeginning of human history. Race is a universal,
socially constructed concept used to categorize humans
originating from different geographical locations
by salient physiognomic variations (i.e., skin tone,eye shape). Interestingly, this visual categorization

Citation: de Lissa, P., Sokhn, N., Lasrado, S., Tanaka, K., Watanabe, K., & Caldara, R. (2021). Rapid saccadic categorization ofother-race faces. Journal of Vision, 21(12):1, 1–17, https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.21.12.1.
https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.21.12.1

Received June 2, 2021; published November 1, 2021

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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ISSN 1534-7362 Copyright 2021 The Authors

Journal of Vision (2021) 21(12):1, 1–17

de Lissa et al.

impacts upon face processing performance and social
judgements. People are typically better at recognizing
faces of their own race than those of other races,
an effect coined as the other-race effect (Brigham &Barkowitz, 1978; Fallshore & Schooler, 1995; Meissner& Brigham, 2001; Rhodes et al., 2009; Valentine &Endo, 1992). Coupled with this identity recognition
advantage is a seemingly counterintuitive speed
advantage. When judging the race of a face people
are quicker to categorize other- than same-race faces(Caldara et al., 2004; Feng et al., 2011; Ge et al., 2009;
Levin, 1996, 2000; Liu-Shuang, Norcia, & Rossion,
2014; Valentine & Endo, 1992; Zhao & Bentin, 2008,2011). Termed the other-race categorization effect(ORCA), there is evidence supporting a conceptual link
between these face–race effects, where the strength of
one reliably predicts the strength of the other (Ge etal., 2009). The prevailing theory accounting for thenature of these identity and race categorization effects
is the face–space model proposed by Valentine, whereby
faces are encoded through experience and stored ina multidimensional space (Valentine & Endo, 1992;
Valentine, 1991). In particular, the speed advantage forother-race categorization is theorized to be due to a lesselaborated face space for other-race faces. Other-racefaces are less familiar and represent few exemplars
encoded with suboptimal diagnostic information (i.e.,the color of the eyes is not diagnostic in East Asian[EA] faces, but it is for Caucasian faces). As a result,
other-race faces share distinctive features (i.e., same
hair color), a lack of variance across exemplars, andwill be grouped together in a distinct part of the face
space. The high density across exemplars will engendera dense cluster that will lead to quicker judgements
about the race of other-race faces, but convergingly aface identification impairment as the distance between
exemplars is smaller. This face space explanation for theother-race effect and the ORCA has also been validatedby computational models outlining the statistical natureof perceptual learning for faces (Balas, 2013; Caldara& Abdi, 2006; Furl, Phillips, & O’Toole, 2002; O’Tooleet al., 1994). Race itself has also been proposed torepresent a visual feature that is recognized in the earlystructural processing of faces (Levin, 1996, 2000).
Visual expertise with same- and other-race faces would
be shaped by the familiarity with such race features.
Critically, other-race effects are found across cultures,
where the definition of an “other” race is solely dictatedby which race a person is most familiar with (Sangrioli
et al., 2005). Although a number a studies have foundthat there are cultural differences in where participants
tend to fixate on faces when judging the identity ofdifferent races (Blais et al., 2008; Caldara, Zhou, &Miellet, 2010; for a review see Caldara, 2017), we
do not yet have a clear understanding on how faces
are processed outside of the central foveal visualarea, because nearly the entire scientific literature has

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been established with stimuli presented in the fovea.
This lack of knowledge is quite puzzling, becauseroutinely natural vision involves the perception of
faces outside of the fovea; very rarely do we only see
faces directly from the central visual field. A rapid
complex dynamic is necessary to integrate peripheraland foveal information in the visual system. The
fast and initial low spatial frequency processing offaces in the peripheral visual field allows us to detectthe diagnostic information necessary to generatepredictions of the spatial arrangement of the faces
and direct a saccade for a refined foveal analysis. The
understating of this fine-grained interplay is necessary
to have a comprehensive knowledge of face processing
and human vision, but has been largely ignored. The
sensitivity to faces presented in the periphery has
recently been highlighted in saccadic choice paradigms
where we are typically significantly faster to makesaccades toward faces than to other objects (Boucart
et al., 2016; Crouzet et al., 2010; Crouzet & Thorpe,
2011; Guyader et al., 2017; Kauffmann et al., 2019).
Of particular note are the findings of Crouzet et al.
(2010) showing that human face detection using asaccadic choice paradigm can occur within 100 ms
after stimulus onset, suggesting a very early stage ofperceptual processing to be responsible for such explicit
judgements. Not only are people typically faster tomake eye movements toward faces as a category, but weare also able to process an array of dimensions within
faces when presented extrafoveally, such as gender(Ramon, Sokhn, & Caldara, 2019; Ramon, Sokhn, Lao,
& Caldara, 2018), emotion (Bayle et al., 2011; Smith &Rossi, 2018) direction of eye gaze (Mares et al., 2016),
and identity to a degree (Ramon et al., 2019; Visconti
di Oleggio Castello & Gobbini, 2015). Self-guided
saccadic eye movements may, therefore, be due in partto the perception of these dimensions in daily life andrelated to what we may choose as categorical targets forour attention and eye gaze. However, to the best of ourknowledge, whether race categorization can be achievedin extrafoveal analysis of faces remains unknown. We,
therefore, do not yet know whether race can modulate
oculomotor behaviors in extrafoveal visual contexts andplay a role in the selection of face targets to saccadetoward. Some studies have obliquely moved towardshedding light onto the processing of race in visualcontexts involving multiple potential target faces, withfaster response times observed in a visual face searchtask when targets belonged to another race (Zhou etal., 2015), and differences relating to observer culturegroup when searching for faces of specific races (Sun etal., 2013). In contrast, an earlier study found a speed
advantage for same-race faces in a similar task (Lipp etal., 2009), suggesting a somewhat inconsistent patternin such tasks. However, these studies did not control foreye movements or specifically measure the processingof race in extrafoveal faces, because the responses inJournal of Vision (2021) 21(12):1, 1–17

de Lissa et al.

each task concluded a search period where each of
the faces could be foveated upon and analyzed. The
processing of race in extrafoveal vision is therefore
still not clear, because a separation of prefixation andpostfixation processing cannot be made with such
experimental paradigms. Determining whether race canbe categorized extrafoveally would therefore clarify
whether such processing may occur before fixation. In
addition, an analysis of minimum saccadic responsetime of such race-related judgments can offer valuable
insight into whether earlier or later stages of perceptual
processing are implicated in the categorization of racein extrafoveal vision, akin to the minimum saccadic
response analyses performed by Crouzet et al. (2010).
To address these questions, we performed two
categorization by race studies while controlling for theeye movements of Swiss Western Caucasian (WC) andJapanese (EA) observers. Using a cross-cultural sample
further allowed us to investigate any cultural differencesof which parts of the faces are fixated upon in the fovealand extrafoveal tasks. There is evidence suggestingthat EA participants tend to make central fixations to
faces during race categorization tasks, whereas WC
participants tend to fixate the eye or mouth regions(Blais et al., 2008). Similar patterns have been found forface recognition tasks (Blais et al., 2008; Caldara, Zhou,& Miellet, 2010; Kelly et al., 2011; Miellet et al., 2010;Rodger et al., 2010), although other studies have founddifferences in fixation patterns based on the race of theface being viewed rather than the race of the observer(Goldinger et al., 2009; Or et al., 2015). In study 1, weused a saccadic choice task to establish whether andhow race is processed extrafoveally and which facial
features are fixated to achieve this feat. The results ofstudy 1 showed that not only does race categorization
reliably occur in extrafoveal vision, but that the ORCA
effects in an extrafoveal saccadic response paradigm
occur much earlier (approximately 300 ms) than in the
typical central button press paradigm (approximately
600 ms). Study 1 also revealed that the well-establishedcultural fixation biases emerged only in the foveatedcondition and were abolished by extrafoveal saccadic
responses. However, there are differences between
the foveal key press and extrafoveal saccadic choiceparadigms that do not make a direct comparison of thereactions times easy to interpret. Therefore, to more
readily interpret the fast response times observed in
the saccadic choice task in study 1, we implemented asecond study to compare the effects of spatial frequency
loss inherent in extrafoveal perception, as well as
the use of button presses as a response modality inan extrafoveal presentation paradigm. In study 2,
we replicated the foveal key press experiment, while
applying a retinal filter to reconstruct the loss of visualacuity inherent in extrafoveal vision to determine
whether the impoverished visual information was at
the root of the saccadic response speed advantage

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observed in study 1. Second, to determine whether
the fast response times observed in the extrafoveal
saccadic choice paradigm were due to a difference in the
response modality, we recreated the extrafoveal saccadic
choice paradigm but required participants to make key
press responses instead of saccades. In addition to thiscomparison, we further compared the extrafoveal key
press response times with the foveal key press response
times from study 1 to determine the effect of extrafoveal
presentation when the response modality was the same.
Study 2 revealed that the low spatial frequency typicalof the extrafoveal visual information processing does
not play a critical role in the fast saccadic response
toward other-race faces, but the response modality does.

Methods for study 1
The Human Ethics Committee at the University
of Fribourg and the University of Waseda approved
the methods and procedure used in this study. All
participants provided written informed consent inaccordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.
The data used in the statistical analyses and in theconstruction of the graphical depictions in studies 1 and
2 are openly available at doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/PMKR3(osf.io/pmkr3).

Participants
Eighty participants in total took part in study 1 in
two separate cross-cultural groups; 40 WC participants(34 female, mean age = 21.4 ± 2.2 years) of the
University of Fribourg and 40 EA participants (25female, mean age = 21 ± 2 years) of Waseda University
and the surrounding region of Kanto, Japan. Afterdata processing and exclusion procedures (see data
analysis, preprocessing), 28 WC datasets and 31 EA
datasets were included for statistical analysis in theextrafoveal saccadic choice task. All 40 of each WC andEA datasets were included in the foveal key press task.
All participants had normal or corrected-to-normal
vision, and gave their written informed consent before
participating in the study. Participants were given eithera monetary reward or course participation credits fortheir participation.

Stimuli and procedure
Stimuli in study 1 consisted of grayscale imagesof 10 Caucasian and 10 Asian identities (equal
numbers of male and female). The images were neutral
expression frontal portrait photographs of Belgian(WC) and Chinese (EA) students aged between 18 andJournal of Vision (2021) 21(12):1, 1–17

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Figure 1. Examples of the appearance of the stimuli and trial sequences presented to participants in the extrafoveally presented
saccadic choice (left) and foveally presented key press (right) tasks. The face identities depicted in this ﬁgure and those following werecreated by the authors, were not used in the study, and are for illustration purposes only. Permission to use these identities has been
granted to the authors.

25 years (database identities: AM1-5, AF1-5, CM1-5,
and CF1-5), and have been used in previous studies
investigating other-race behavioral effects (Michel,Caldara, & Rossion, 2006; Michel, Rossion, Han,
Chung, & Caldara, 2006). The faces were cropped to
exclude hair and ears, and were matched for amplitude
spectra, luminance, and contrast using the SHINE
toolbox (Willenbockel et al., 2010). The face stimuli
were presented at a distance of 70 cm from theparticipants (subtending 9° × 12° of visual angle each)on VIEWPixx/3D (Switzerland) and EIZO FORIS
FG2421 (Japan) LCD monitors (120 Hz refresh, 1920
× 1080 resolution). The luminance of the ViewPixx
monitor was set at 100cd/m2 at full 255 intensity and themean pixel intensity of the presented images was 114(8-bit grayscale). Stimuli were presented via MATLAB
software using PsychToolBox (Brainard, 1997; Kleiner
et al., 2007; Pelli, 1997) and using an Eyelink extension
to control the eye tracker (Cornelissen et al., 2002).
Study 1 involved two experimental paradigms whereparticipants had to judge the race of presented faces.
In the first paradigm, a single Caucasian or Asian face
was presented in the center of the screen (spatiallyjittered between ±2° left and right) and participants(both WC and EA observers) were instructed to press
an appropriate key button to categorize the faces by
race (“k” for Caucasian and “a” for Asian, and thencounterbalanced). Button press accuracy and reaction
times were recorded for statistical analysis. The trials
began with a central fixation cross for between 500 and
700 ms, followed by a brief black grey screen for 200 ms
that was replaced by the face image. The face remainedon the screen until a button press was recorded, which

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ended the trial (no time-out threshold). The centrally
presented “foveal” presentation experiment consistedof 100 trials each of Caucasian and Asian faces for a
total of 200 randomized trials.
In the second experimental paradigm, a Caucasianand an Asian face were simultaneously presented
in the left and right sides of the screen (left/rightpositioning was randomized), and participants were
instructed beforehand to make an eye movement towardeither the Caucasian or the Asian face. Owing to theuse of this forced-choice task, the participants were
instructed ahead of time whether to locate the Asianor the Caucasian faces through instructions given at
the beginning of each new experimental block of 100
trials. The order of these blocks were counterbalanced
between participants. The saccadic reaction accuracy(saccades leading into target faces) and reaction time(onset time of response saccades) were recorded forstatistical analysis. The trials began with a central
fixation cross displayed for between 800 and 1600 ms,
followed by a brief grey screen for 200 ms that was
replaced by Caucasian and Asian faces presented in theleft and right sides of the screen, offset from the centerby 8.6° (Figure 1). The faces remained on the screen for
800 ms, before being replaced by a blank grey screen for
1,000 ms. The saccadic choice task paradigm consistedof 100 trials each where the target was Caucasian andAsian, respectively, for a total of 200 randomized trials.
Participants in study 1 performed both the foveal key
press and the extrafoveal saccadic response experiments.
Eye position data were recorded during both tasks toallow for analyses of fixation location and duration on
the stimuli during the respective tasks.

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de Lissa et al.

Eye positions were recorded through a desktopmounted Eyelink 1000 (SR Research) monocular (left)
eye tracker sampling at 1,000 Hz. Calibrations of theeye tracker (9 points) were performed at the beginningof the experiment, between blocks, and after breaks inthe trials. Chin and forehead rests were used to stabilize
participants’ heads during the testing sessions. Saccadic
response latencies were calculated for each trial, andfixation maps were constructed for each participant’s
fixation patterns on the face stimuli in each of the twotasks to investigate whether there were cross-culturaldifferences in sampling strategies.

Data analysis
Preprocessing
We applied the algorithm developed by Nyström andHolmqvist (2010) to retrieve fixations and the onset ofthe first saccade in the extrafoveal saccadic choice task.
Fixations were realigned in a normalized space using
the iTemplate toolbox (Xiao & Lee, 2018). A total of
247 trials (2.09%) in which the onset of the first saccade
was faster than 80 ms were removed from the analysis
because they were considered as very early saccades(Visconti di Oleggio Castello & Gobbini, 2015). For the
foveal key press task, the reaction time was recordedin each trial when a given behavioral response wasprovided. A total of 389 trials (2.43%) in which reaction
time was higher than 2.5 standard deviations fromthe mean (within each subject) was discarded fromthe analysis as they were considered as outliers. Only
correct trials of participants that were above chancelevel in both experiments were analyzed. A total of
28 WC and 31 EA participants were included in theanalyses of the extrafoveal saccadic choice task and a
total of 40 EA and 40 WC participants for the analysesof the foveal key press task.
Behavioral analysis
Reaction times of the WC and EA observers
were analyzed with a linear mixed model using a
gamma distribution. Two predictors were coded asdummy variables: the race of the stimuli (Caucasianstimuli used as reference stimuli) and the race of theobservers (Caucasian group as reference group) with
their interaction factor. Subject was included as arandom intercept to account for repeated measures.
The 2 × 2 design was conducted separately for the
foveal-presentation (using key press reaction times as
input data) and extrafoveal presentation (using saccadic
response onset times as data input) paradigms.
Reaction time ∼ Race × Group + (1|observers)

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Models were fitted in R (version 3.2.4; R Core
Team, 2013) using the lme4 package (Bates et al., 2015)
and the lmerTest (Kuznetsova et al., 2015) for null
hypothesis testing. Figures were produced with the
ggplot2 package (Wickham, 2016).

Fixation map analysis
The fixation duration maps were computed using
the statistically data-driven method built in iMap4(Lao et al., 2017). We then smoothed these maps witha two-dimensional Gaussian kernel function at 0.8° ofvisual angle by selecting the estimated option. Thismethod computes for each condition and observer the
expected values across trials. Finally, we normalized
the maps by dividing them with the sum duration ofeach trial. A pixel-wise linear mixed model was thenapplied on the smoothed normalized fixation maps anda multiple comparison correction was conducted byusing a bootstrap spatial clustering method (cluster size
option) to control for type 1 errors. The design model
chosen for the fixation map analysis involved fixation
duration considered as the response variable, and groupof observers considered as the predictor.

Methods for study 2
The Human Ethics Committee at the University of
Fribourg and the University of Waseda approved themethods and procedure used in this study.

Participants
Data were collected from separate participant groups
in two different foveal and extrafoveal experimental
paradigms, each with cross-cultural samples. Forty
participants were tested in a spatially filtered foveal
paradigm: 20 WC participants (16 female, mean age =22.4 ± 4.2 years) from the University of Fribourg and
20 EA participants (10 female, mean age = 21.1 ± 2.3
years) from Waseda University and the surrounding
region of Kanto, Japan.
Forty participants were also tested in an extrafoveallypresented key press paradigm: 20 WC participants(14 female, mean age = 21.4 ± 4.4 years) from the
University of Fribourg and 20 EA participants (10female, mean age = 20.9 ± 1.5 years) Waseda University
and the surrounding region of Kanto, Japan.
All participants had normal or corrected-to-normal
vision, and gave their informed consent before
participating in the study. Participants were offered 50
CHF for their time or course participation credits.

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de Lissa et al.

Stimuli, procedure, and data analysis
The stimuli and procedures used in study 2 were thesame as in study 1; however, a high-pass spatial filter
scaled by stimulus eccentricity (8.6° from the center ofthe face stimuli) was applied to the foveally presented
stimuli to reconstruct the loss of visual acuity observedin extrafoveal vision (Targino Da Costa & Do, 2014).
The scaling of the retinal filter replicated the spatial
frequencies available for processing in proportion to the
distance from the fovea, where the furthest areas of theface stimuli contained lower spatial frequencies thanthose closer to the central visual field (Figure 2a). Apartfrom the use of filtered stimuli, the procedure for the
foveal key press task remained the same as in study 1.
Similarly, the procedure for the extrafoveal paradigm
remained unchanged from study 1, with the exceptionthat instead of participants making eye-movements tothe target race defined at the beginning of each 100 trial
block, participants were instructed to press the “s” key
if the target race was on the left and the “k” key if it
was on the right. Thus, the laterality of the key response
spatially matched that of the target in each trial. The

6timing of the stimulus presentation was kept the sameas in study ,1 with the exception that the face images
remained on the screen until a key press was made, as
piloting suggested that participants required more time
to categorize race than when saccadic responses wereused.
Behavioral data analyses for the key press responses
in both tasks were the same as for study 1 so that the
behavioral results from study 1 could be statisticallycompared with those of study 2. Two independent
samples of participants were tested in experiments 1
and 2, because these experiments were conducted insuccession as the project and research aims unfolded.
To complement the mean reaction time analyses
and to more thoroughly scrutinize the apparent speed
advantage of saccadic responses in the extrafoveal
presentation task, minimum reaction times were
calculated in the saccadic response and key press
response tasks to determine the earliest time thatparticipants were able to reliably categorize the raceof the faces in these respective response modalities.
The minimum reaction time was calculated for eachparticipant through χ 2 tests using 10-ms time bins
across the trials. The minimum reaction time bin
was defined as the first bin where the number ofcorrect trials statistically outperformed the numberof incorrect trials, followed by three consecutively
outperforming bins (p < .05) (Besson et al., 2017), or
when a participant made no error responses in the earlylatency range three correct responses were required toconstitute a minimum reaction time bin (Kirchner &Thorpe, 2006). The resulting minimum reaction timefor each combination of the race of the target face, raceof observer, and response modality were statisticallycompared. Finally, to explore the accuracy of the racecategorization judgements in the extrafoveal saccadic
choice and key press tasks, we analyzed the proportionof correct responses between conditions, including task
as a factor.

Results from study 1: Foveal andextrafoveal race categorization
ORCA reaction time
Foveal key press task

Figure 2. Study 2 involved the same stimuli used in study 1;
however, the foveal presentation task used spatially ﬁlteredstimuli (a) to match the low-level spatial-frequencies available
through extrafoveal vision. The extrafoveal presentation task
required key presses (b) rather than saccadic responses as instudy 1.

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The fitted model on key press reaction time revealed
a significant main effect of the race of stimuli and asignificant interaction between the group of observers
and the race of stimuli (Figure 3), with β stimuli_asian =0.03, 95% CI, 0.02–0.05, t(15034) = 4.65, p < 0.0001
and β group_asian,stimuli_asian = –0.10, 95% CI, −0.12 to−0.08, t(15034) = −9.5, p < 0.0001 . Our data showed
that, on average, WC observers were faster to categorize

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on average 4 ms faster than EA faces. No main effect
was found for the group of observers with β group_asian =0.11, 95% CI −0.22 to 0.44, t(9152) = 0.65, p > 0.05.

Fixation analysis
Foveal key press task

Figure 3. Both WC (Swiss) and EA (Japanese) observers were
faster to categorize the presented faces by race when the target
faces were of a diﬀerent race to their own. Reaction times inthe extrafoveal saccadic response task (left) wereapproximately 300 ms faster than when participants had tojudge the race of a single face with a key press (right). ***p ≤0.001, **p ≤ 0.01, *p ≤ 0.05, error bars reﬂect 95% conﬁdence
intervals of the means.

Asian faces (M = 596 ms) compared with Caucasian
faces (M = 609 ms) and EA observers were faster tocategorize Caucasian faces (M = 589 ms) comparedwith Asian faces (M = 613 ms), whereas overall
participants were 5 ms faster to categorize WC faces.
No main effect was found for the group of observers
with β group_asian = 0.08, 95% CI, −0.05 to 0.21, t(15034)= 1.19, p > 0.05.
Extrafoveal saccadic choice task
The fitted model on reaction time (seconds) revealed
a significant main effect of the race of stimuli and asignificant interaction between the group of observers
and the race of stimuli (Figure 3), with β stimuli_asian =0.06, 95% CI, 0.01–0.11, t(9152) = 2.59, p < 0.001 andβ group_asian,stimuli_asian = –0.21, 95% CI, −0.27 to −0.14,t(9152) = –6.20, p < 0.0001 . Our data showed that, on
average, WC observers were faster to categorize Asianfaces (M = 344 ms) compared with Caucasian faces (M= 352 ms) and EA observers were faster to categorize
Caucasian faces (M = 322 ms) compared with Asianfaces (M = 338 ms). The WC faces were categorized

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Our first fitted model revealed a significant effect of
the group, denoting significant differences in where theWC and EA participants tended to fixate during thistask. We obtained three significant clusters for the WC
faces: An eyes cluster, F(1,156) = 15.23 at the local
maximum within the cluster with a beta contrast equal
to −0.32, 95% CI, −0.49 to −0.16; and F(1,156) =3.90, p <0.05 at the local minimum within the clusterwith a beta contrast equal to −1.17 95% CI, −2.34
to 0; a left noise cluster: F(1,156) = 44.90 at the local
maximum within the cluster with a beta contrast equal
to 0.75, 95% CI, 0.53 to 0.97; and F(1,156) = 3.91, p<0.05, at the local minimum within the cluster witha beta contrast equal to 0.83, 95% CI, 0 to 1.65; anda right noise cluster: F(1,156) = 23.86 at the local
maximum within the cluster with a beta contrast equal
to 1.66, 95% CI, 0.99 to 2.33 and F(1,156) = 3.91, p< 0.05 at the local minimum within the cluster with abeta contrast equal to 0.96, 95% CI, 0 to 1.91. Similarsignificant clusters were found for the EA faces; an eyescluster: F(1,156) = 18.55 at the local maximum within
the cluster with a beta contrast equal to −0.73, 95%
CI, −1.06 −0.39; and F(1,156) = 3.93, p <0.05 at the
local minimum within the cluster with a beta contrast
equal to −0.64 95% CI, −1.28 to 0; a left noise cluster:F(1,156) = 44 at the local maximum within the clusterwith a beta contrast equal to 1.14, 95% CI, 0.80 to 1.47;
and F(1,156) = 3.91, p <0.05, at the local minimum
within the cluster with a beta contrast equal to 1.08,
95% CI, 0 to 2.16; and a right noise cluster: F(1,156)= 18.89 at the local maximum within the cluster witha beta contrast equal to 1.80, 95% CI, 0.98 to 2.61
and F(1,156) = 3.90, p < 0.05 at the local minimum
within the cluster with a beta contrast equal to 1.09,
95% CI, 0 to 2.18. These results indicate that the WC
observers’ tended to sample the eye region, whereas the
EA observers sampled the central region of faces, seedifference maps in Figure 4a.

Extrafoveal saccadic choice task
In contrast with the foveal key press task, no groupeffects were found in the fixation analysis in theextrafoveal saccadic choice task, with no differences
observed in where the WC and EA participants tended
to fixate in either the WC or the EA stimuli faces(Figure 4b).

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de Lissa et al.

8

Figure 4. Fixation maps showing salient regions for WC (Swiss) and EA (Japanese) observers during face-categorization by race in the
foveal key press task (a) and extrafoveal saccadic choice task (b). Signiﬁcant areas are demarcated with black lines. Diﬀerences
between the observer groups were found only in the foveal key press task, and not in the extrafoveal saccadic choice task.

Results from study 2: Eﬀects ofspatial ﬁltering, face location, andresponse modality
ORCA reaction time: Spatially ﬁltered versus
broadband foveal faces
The fitted model on reaction time (seconds) revealed
a significant main effect of the race of stimuli, theinteraction between the group of observers and therace of stimuli, and the interaction between the groupof observers and the task with β stimuli_asian = 0.03,
95% CI, 0.02 to 0.05, t(22427) = 4.23, p < 0.0001,
β group_asian,stimuli_asian, = − 0.10, 95% CI, −0.12 to −0.07,t(22427) = −8.65, p < 0.05 and β group_asian,task_foveal_filtered= − 0.27, 95% CI, −0.51 to −0.04, t(22427) = −2.28, p< 0.05. As found in study 1, participants were faster tocategorize the WC faces than the EA faces, although theaverage advantage was only 2 ms. Although both groups
exhibited a typical ORCA pattern, with faster responses

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to other-race faces, only the EA observers exhibitedan effect of stimulus quality, where the retinal-filteredstimuli led to significantly slower responses thanbroadband faces (Figure 5).

ORCA reaction time: Extrafoveal versus foveal
key press tasks
The fitted model on reaction time (seconds) revealed
a significant main effect of the race of stimuli, thetask, the interaction between the group of observers
and the race of stimuli and the interaction between
the race of stimuli, the group of observers and thetask with β stimuli_asian = 0.03, 95% CI, 0.02 to 0.05,t(22665) = 4.40, p < 0.001, β task_extrafoveal_keypress =−0.29, 95% CI, −0.45 to −0.13, t(22665) = −3.58,
p < 0.001, β group_asian,stimuli_asian = −0.09, 95% CI,−0.12 to −0.07, t(22665) = −9.00, p < 0.001 andβ group_asian,stimuli_asian_task_extrafoveal_keypress _ = −0.10,
95% CI, −0.14 to −0.07. WC faces were categorizedJournal of Vision (2021) 21(12):1, 1–17

de Lissa et al.

Figure 5. WC (Swiss) and EA (Japanese) observers were faster tocategorize other-race faces than their own, however only
Japanese observers exhibited an eﬀect of stimulus quality, withslower responses to retinal-ﬁltered faces in general. ***p ≤0.001, **p ≤ 0.01, *p ≤ 0.05, error bars reﬂect 95% conﬁdence
intervals of the means.

on average 6 ms faster than EA faces overall. An
ORCA was observed in both observer groups, aswere significantly faster responses to the foveallypresented faces than the extrafoveally presented faces(see Figure 6).

ORCA reaction time: Key press versus saccadic
choice in extrafoveal presentation
The fitted model on reaction time (seconds) revealed
a significant main effect of the race of stimuli, the task,
and the interaction between the group of observers andthe race of stimuli with β stimuli_asian = 0.06, 95% CI, 0.02
to 0.10, t(16783) = 2.83, p < 0.001, β task_extrafoveal_keypress,= −1.68, 95% CI, −2.04 to −1.33, t(16783) = −9.26,
p < 0.001 and β group_asian,stimuli_asian = −0.21, 95% CI,−0.27 to −0.15, t(16783) = −6.80, p < 0.001. WC
faces were categorized on average 5 ms faster than EA
faces overall. An ORCA was observed in both observergroups, as were significantly faster responses in thesaccadic choice modality than in the key press modality(see Figure 7).

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9

Figure 6. WC (Swiss) and EA (Japanese) observers were faster tocategorize other-race faces than their own in both the fovealand extrafoveal key press tasks, however mean response times
were signiﬁcantly slower when participants categorized therace of extrafoveally presented faces. ***p ≤ 0.001, **p ≤0.01, *p ≤ 0.05, error bars reﬂect 95% conﬁdence intervals of
the means.

Minimum reaction time: Key press versus
saccadic choice in extrafoveal presentation
An analysis of the minimum saccadic reaction times
revealed that race was able to be reliably categorized
within 200 ms after stimulus presentation for both WC
and EA observers (Figure 8). In contrast, a minimum
reaction time analysis of the key press responses tothe same extrafoveal presentation revealed a muchslower minimum response time, taking almost twice
as much time to make reliable race categorization
judgements (392 ms). An additional minimum reaction
time analysis on individual participant data showed asimilar overall pattern of faster responses in the saccadechoice modality than the key press modality (Figure 9).

ORCA accuracy: Key press versus saccadic
choice in extrafoveal presentation
The fitted mixed model with binomial family on thecorrect response revealed a significant main effect ofJournal of Vision (2021) 21(12):1, 1–17

de Lissa et al.

Figure 7. WC (Swiss) and EA (Japanese) observers were faster tocategorize by race other-race than same-race faces. A
comparison or response modality in the extrafoveal
choice-paradigm revealed signiﬁcantly faster responses whenparticipants were instructed to saccade to the target faces thanwhen they had to make key presses corresponding to the sideof the target. ***p ≤ 0.001, **p ≤ 0.01, *p ≤ 0.05, error bars
reﬂect 95% conﬁdence intervals of the means.

the race of stimuli, task, the interaction between thegroup of observers and the race of stimuli and theinteraction between the group of observers and thetask, with β stimuli_asian = 0.13, 95% CI, 0.002 to 0.27, z= 2, p < 0.05, β task_SRTkeypress = 2.12, 95% CI, 1.74 to
2.50, z = 10.95, p < 0.0001, β task_SRTkeypress,stimuli_asian =−0.31, 95% CI, −0.50 to −0.14, z = −3.42, p < 0.0001
and β task_SRTkeypress,group_asian = 0.82, 95% CI, 0.21 to
1.44, z = 2.64, p < 0.001. The critical comparison oftask revealed a clear difference in accuracy between thesaccadic choice and key press response modalities, withan average accuracy of 80% in the former and 98% in
the latter (Figure 10). Overall participants were moreaccurate at categorizing the EA stimuli.

Discussion
The results of study 1 highlight the robustness of
the ORCA in foveated key pressed tasks. However,the novelty lies in the majority of observers reliably
categorizing faces by race when presented extrafoveallyin the saccadic choice task. A full crossover interaction

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was observed between WC (Swiss) and EA (Japanese)
observers, reinforcing the universal (cross-cultural)
nature of the ORCA. Cross-cultural differences in the
fixation analysis were evident only in the foveal key
press task, with WC observers spending more time
fixating the eye regions of the faces, whereas EA spent
more time fixating the central nose region, regardlessof the race of the face stimuli. Such a pattern echoes
previous findings during a race categorization task
(Blais et al., 2008). When interpreting the absenceof a similar effect in the saccadic choice paradigm,
it is relevant to consider that in this task the racecategorization decision was made before a fixation
being made on the face. However, the landing positions
observed in our study correspond closely with thosefound by Or et al. (2015), centering on the bridge of thenose and interpreted in that study to reflect an optimal
point for efficiently sampling faces when constrained
to a limited number of fixations. Alternatively, thecross-cultural intermediate fixation location might
represent a center-of-gravity effect (Bindemann et al.,2009), where the geometric upper-middle portion of
the faces served as the optimal landing location forparticipants to express their decision in the task, wherea further visual analysis was no longer necessary.
However, because it is quite likely that participantsin our study used the initial fixation on the faces toconfirm that they made a saccade to the correct race
face, we favor the interpretation that the upper-central
landing points of fixations found in our study reflect an
optimal location for visual sampling akin to that foundby Or et al. (2015).
Aside from the speed advantage for other-racefaces observed in the extrafoveal saccadic choice task,
participants were able to achieve this task surprisingly
faster than expected. Although a direct comparison of
the foveal key press and extrafoveal saccadic responsetasks is problematic owing to a difference in both the
response modality and the low-level visual differences
between the tasks, participants were neverthelessapproximately 260 ms faster to categorize race in theextrafoveal saccadic response task (approximately 340ms) than in the foveal key press task (approximately
600 ms). These results provide a clear indication thatrace is processed very quickly after face presentation,even outside of the fovea. This observation raised thequestion of whether the overall speed advantage weobserved for categorizing race extrafoveally was related
to the impoverished visual quality of the face stimuli
owing to the loss of acuity inherent in extrafoveal
vision. The follow-up experiment in study 2 directly
addressed this question by comparing the speed ofrace categorization for foveally presented faces that
had been retinally filtered to approximate extrafoveal
acuity with broadband faces. Although a robust ORCA
effect was evident in both paradigms, this second study
showed that the saccadic responses were on average

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de Lissa et al.

11

Figure 8. WC (Swiss) and EA (Japanese) observers were able to reliably categorize the faces by race in the extrafoveal saccadic choicetask within 200 ms of stimulus presentation, suggesting rapid processing and response preparation in race perception.

twice as fast as key press responses (approximately
340 ms and approximately 680 ms, respectively)(Figure 10). A similar pattern was observed in theminimum reaction time analysis, where reliable racecategorization responses were evident within 200 ms ofstimulus presentation in the saccadic choice paradigm
compared with 392 ms in the key press paradigm(Figure 8). This effect was not exaggerated comparedwith the full-spectrum conditions, as observed in aprevious study (Zhang et al., 2017). This discrepancy
might be accounted for by the more ecologically valid
retinal filter used in our study (Targino Da Costa &Do, 2014), controlling for visual eccentricity. Overall,
it is clear that race categorization saccadic responses
were significantly faster than key press responses, evenwhen the visual presentation paradigms were matchedin terms of both visual quality and competition.

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General discussion
The purpose of this series of studies and experiments
was to determine whether observers are able to extract
race in extrafoveal vision, and whether other-racefaces produce faster categorization responses thansame-race faces, as previously found in ORCA studies
using foveal presentations. We observed consistent,
full-crossover interaction effects for the ORCA in
all our experiments, confirming the robustness of
this perceptual phenomenon. Our data clearly show
fast and effective extrafoveal face categorization by
race. Strikingly, the speed at which extrafoveal racecategorization occurred in the current study was much
faster than anticipated. Reliable race categorization
occurred within 200 ms of face presentation outside ofJournal of Vision (2021) 21(12):1, 1–17

de Lissa et al.

12

Figure 9. The minimum reaction time analyses of the individual participants suggested a consistent speed advantage for saccadic
choice responses compared with key press responses. ORCA value below.

the fovea and this speed advantage cannot by accounted
for by differences in spatial frequency properties per se.
Such timing is in line with electrophysiologicalstudies showing early race categorization effects withfoveated faces (Caharel et al., 2011; Ito & Urland, 2003;
Stahl et al., 2010; Vizioli et al., 2010; Walker et al., 2008;
Wiese, 2013; but see Caldara et al., 2003; Caldara etal., 2004; Lv et al., 2015; Sun et al., 2014; Tanaka &Pierce, 2009; Wiese et al., 2009), confirming the solidityof the current eye movement method as a sensitive andeffective tool to investigate the temporal dynamics of
categorical events.
As noted in the preceding section, the comparisonof saccadic choice responses with key presses whencategorizing race in extrafoveal faces showed a much
faster categorization when eye movements were used as
the response medium. Coupled with the finding that
response times for extrafoveal key presses were actuallyslower than key presses to foveally presented faces, it
is clear that the speed advantage was related to the
response modality and not specifically an extrafoveal
perception of the faces. Such a finding is relevant
in a number of ways. Primarily as a methodologicalconcern, the reaction time can give an insight into

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the end of a cascade of perceptual and decisional
processes and establish a time frame for the latest
stages at which these processes occur. In line with
our findings, previous studies have found race to be
categorized reliably within approximately 600 ms
when using conventional key presses as a response
modality (Valentine & Endo, 1992, mean reaction
time = 576 ms; Caldara et al., 2004, mean reaction
time = 555 ms, Zhao & Bentin, 2008, 2011, mean
reaction time = 597 ms and 662 ms, respectively). Wheninferring the processes relating to the categorizationof race, such a time range may involve both earlyand later stages of visual processing to perform sucha task. However, in light of the current saccadic
choice reaction time results that race can be reliably
categorized extrafoveally within 200 ms, it is clear that
it is very likely that the early perceptual processing
stages are recruited for the processing of race. To relate
this to a general methodological point, these results
thus suggest that the use of saccadic responses as a
response modality may provide a clearer functionalsignature of how fast other types of processing may
occur as well, outside of the realm of face–race
processing.

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de Lissa et al.

Figure 10. WC (Swiss) and EA (Japanese) observers did not diﬀer
for the accuracy in categorizing by race other- than same-racefaces. A comparison or response modality in the extrafoveal
choice paradigm revealed signiﬁcantly lower accuracy whenparticipants were instructed to saccade to the target faces thanwhen they had to make key presses corresponding with theside of the target. ***p ≤ 0.001, **p ≤ 0.01, *p ≤ 0.05, error
bars reﬂect 95% conﬁdence intervals of the means.

Interestingly, the expected cultural bias (Blais et al.,2008) observed in the visual sampling strategies during
face recognition and categorization by race appeared
only when faces were foveated. In this condition only,
Westerners fixated more to the eye region comparedwith the Easterners, who fixated more the central
nose region. This observation offers an interpretationof the apparent absence of cultural fixation biases
with very constrained experimental designs (Or etal., 2015). WCs and EA observers shared a similar
fixation landing location between the bridge of theeyes only in the constrained extrafoveal conditions, inwhich information intake needs to be maximized after
the first fixation. However, the processing of faces inextrafoveal vison and the inability to cancel a saccadic
movement beyond a critical time would predict larger
error rates. In fact, the comparison of error rates
between the saccadic choice and key press tasks showedthat accuracy in the key press task approached ceilingwith an average of 98%, this decreased significantly inthe saccadic choice task to 80%. Altogether, these data
show that the fixation strategy used with foveated faces
is slower, culturally dependent, but optimal for facerecognition and categorization by race.

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13

Although cultural differences in race categorization
was not the main focus of the current series ofexperiments per se, it is of note that the spatial
frequency manipulation used in study 2 seemed to
impact EA observers much more than WC observers.
Previous studies investigating cultural differences inface processing tasks have typically found that EA
participants tend to rely more heavily on low spatial
frequencies, whereas WC participants make more
relative use of high spatial frequencies (Caldara, Zhou,& Miellet, 2010; Estéphan et al., 2018; Miellet et al.,2010; Tardif et al., 2017). According to these findings,
we might have expected a decrease in high spatial
frequencies to disproportionately delay responses in
the WC participant sample. The opposite pattern wasobserved, however, with significantly slower response
times in the EA participant sample when the facestimuli had been filtered spatially to decrease highfrequencies (Figure 5). These previous findings related
to face recognition tasks, so it is therefore not clear thatsuch a cultural-dependent pattern would directly apply
to race categorization. However, given the previous
finding that race categorization relies heavily on theperception of low spatial frequencies (Zhang et al.,2017), our current findings are somewhat unexpected,
and, if they are robust, this dimension would require
further consideration in future studies. Separate from
cultural differences in visual sampling during racecategorization, we observed a consistent advantage inreaction time for WC faces compared with EA faces,
regardless of the task or observer group. However, as
this effect was very small, ranging from 2 ms to 6 ms,
and is not readily explained theoretically or by low-levelvisual differences, we will refrain from speculating on
the source of the effect.
As suggested by theoretical (Valentine, 1991;
Valentine & Endo, 1992) and computational face–spacemodels (Balas, 2013; Caldara & Abdi, 2006; Furl etal., 2002; O’Toole et al., 1994), with visual expertise,the decreased frequency of encountering distinctive
features of a particular race may lead to an increase
for their saliency. This experience-based process mightlead to a greater sensitivity of the visual system todetect them. The speed at which race was detected(approximately 200 ms) might be a functional signature
and a byproduct of a tuning toward same-race faces.
As such, the sensitivity to race in extrafoveal vision
is likely to be specifically modulated by experience
with different races and future studies are necessary
to clarify this issue, as well as how cultural differencesin spatial frequency use during race categorization
develop and interact in paradigms that intrinsicallyinvolve modulation of these low-level factors suchas in extrafoveal perception. Overall, the greater
sensitivity to the visual features shared by other-racefaces may thus lead to early perceptual differences inface processing, interacting with face detection andJournal of Vision (2021) 21(12):1, 1–17

de Lissa et al.

later decisional processes. Such an effect would havestrong implications in contexts where faces in crowds
are scanned by security or police enforcement agencies.
The bias found for people to misidentify objects as
weapons more frequently when primed by other-racefaces (Payne, 2001) relies on the quick extraction ofrace from prime faces preceding object images. The
current results suggest race to be extracted in the very
early stages of perceptual processing, and so effects
observed in the aforementioned study may occur aspart of a cascade of processes where object recognition(or indeed misperception) is influenced by the initialface processing stages. Such an effect may have strong
implications for interpreting asymmetries in police
use of deadly force applied to people of minority
races (Edwards, Lee, & Esposito, 2019). Simulationsof threatening and nonthreatening contexts involving
firearms has revealed a tendency for people to fire
more frequently on unarmed people of another race
in random participant samples (Correll et al., 2002)
as well as samples of police officers (Plant & Peruche,2005). The latter study found that training eliminatedthis effect, which suggests that such race-related effects
are not bound to the perception of other-race faces
themselves, but are more likely to be due to preexisting
attitudes or beliefs related to such groups. Such a
result points to an important conceptual and practicalseparation between the early perceptual face processing
relating to expertise and familiarity, and the potential
consequences of these processes as they interact withexisting beliefs or biases. The question of how early
perceptual processing of race may interact with explicit
or implicit task demands raises further questions
in light of the results of the current study, such aswhether race is sufficiently salient in extrafoveal visionthat it may influence other types of recognition or
categorization even when it is unrelated to the goals?
What are the consequences of such early categorizationof race in terms of other types of analysis that may
interact with existing beliefs and attitudes? Suchquestions are raised by the current results and require
future attention, as there is still a lot we do not yet know
about our sensitivity to the unfamiliar when it comesto race.

Conclusions
Saccades are the fastest movement our body
can perform. Our data show that the speed of racecategorization is boosted by eye movements towardvisual field eccentricity. This early visual categorization
process eliminates fine-grained and time-consuming
information processing and might represent the entry
level of a cascade of social evaluation judgements.
Saccade responses were not as accurate compared

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14with foveated button responses, but neverthelessreached a significantly high level of efficiency. Crucially,
altogether our observations provide new evidenceof race as a powerful rapid low-level visual signaltransmitted by faces, which could be decoded outside
central vision. This rapid visual categorization could
relate to primitive functional mechanisms dedicatedto the evolutionary-relevant social categorization of
ingroup/outgroup members.
Keywords: face processing, race, other-race facecategorization advantage, eye movements, saccades

Acknowledgments
Supported with funding from the Swiss National
Science Foundation awarded to RC (100019_189018),
and from the Japan Society of Promotion for Scienceawarded to KW (KAKENHI: 17H06344, 17H00753).
Commercial relationships: none.
Corresponding authors: Peter de Lissa or Roberto
Caldara.
Email: peter.delissa@unifr.ch or
roberto.caldara@unifr.ch.
Address: Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory(iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of
Fribourg, Rue P.-A.-de-Faucigny 2, 1700 Fribourg,
Switzerland.

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