10.1184/R1/6617852.v1 Rankin W. McGugin Rankin W. McGugin James W. Tanaka James W. Tanaka Sophie Lebrecht Sophie Lebrecht Michael J. Tarr Michael J. Tarr Isabel Gauthier Isabel Gauthier Race-specific perceptual discrimination improvement following short individuation training with faces. Carnegie Mellon University 2011 Adult Continental Population Groups Discrimination (Psychology) Face Female Humans Male Practice (Psychology) Psychomotor Performance Reaction Time Recognition (Psychology) Visual Perception 2011-03-01 00:00:00 Journal contribution https://kilthub.cmu.edu/articles/journal_contribution/Race-specific_perceptual_discrimination_improvement_following_short_individuation_training_with_faces_/6617852 <p>This study explores the effect of individuation training on the acquisition of race-specific expertise. First, we investigated whether practice individuating other-race faces yields improvement in perceptual discrimination for novel faces of that race. Second, we asked whether there was similar improvement for novel faces of a different race for which participants received equal practice, but in an orthogonal task that did not require individuation. Caucasian participants were trained to individuate faces of one race (African American or Hispanic) and to make difficult eye-luminance judgments on faces of the other race. By equating these tasks we are able to rule out raw experience, visual attention, or performance/success-induced positivity as the critical factors that produce race-specific improvements. These results indicate that individuation practice is one mechanism through which cognitive, perceptual, and/or social processes promote growth of the own-race face recognition advantage.</p>