The Role of Spatial Frequency Information in Face Classification by Race

• Published in: Frontiers in Psychology
• Main Authors: Zhang, Guoping, Wang, Zeyao, Wu, Jie, Zhao, Lun
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
• Subjects: Psychology; Orca
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5609628/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28970809; https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01152

It was found that face classification by race is more quickly for other-race than own-race faces (other-race classification advantage, ORCA). Controlling the spatial frequencies of face images, the current study investigated the perceptual processing differences based on spatial frequencies between own-race and other-race faces that might account for the ORCA. Regardless of the races of the observers, the own-race faces were classified faster and more accurately for broad-band faces than for both lower and higher spatial frequency (SF) faces, whereas, although other-race faces were classified less accurately for higher SF than for either broad-band or lower SF faces, there was no difference between broad-band and lower SF conditions of other-race faces. Although it was not evident for higher SF condition, the ORCA was more evident for lower SF than that for broad-band faces. The present data indicate that global/configural information is needed for subordinate race categorization of faces and that an important source of ORCA is application of global/configural computations by default while categorizing an own-race face but not while categorizing an other-race face.