Depth of Processing in Response to Own- and Other-Race Faces

Three groups of Caucasian subjects viewed a series of portraits of white, black, and Japanese persons, respectively. They were asked to write their first thought or response to each picture. A scale was developed to score for "depth of processing" reflected in their responses. White portraits elicited deeper processing responses than did black or Japanese portraits. Expectation of a subsequent recognition memory test affected processing of Japanese portraits. The findings suggest a possible explanation of the difficulty white subjects experience when asked to recognize other-race faces.