Does attending to the nose vs. eyes reduce the cross-race recognition deficit? A systematic test
Abstract
People typically demonstrate poorer recognition for faces from racial outgroups compared to ingroups, a phenomenon known as the cross-race recognition deficit (CRD). In the present research, we tested one influential account of this effect: the diagnostic-features model. This model proposes that, through experience, the perceptual system becomes tuned to race-specific diagnostic features (e.g., eyes for White faces, nose for Black faces), and that directing attention to these features can reduce the CRD. We systematically tested this prediction across five studies (N = 736) using face stimuli drawn from six databases. In Studies 1 to 4, White (Portuguese) participants completed old/new recognition tasks with both White and Black faces, using either fixation crosses (Studies 1, 2, 4) or explicit word cues (Study 3) to direct attention to the eyes or nose. Study 5 extended the design in three ways: it recruited UK-born participants, included both White and Black perceivers, and used both male and female faces, thereby more closely aligning the design with the original studies while adding methodological improvements. Across all five studies, we consistently observed the CRD, but found no credible evidence that directing attention to putatively diagnostic features modulated the CRD, with Bayes factors providing strong evidence against this effect. The absence of a fixation effect held equally for White and Black perceivers and for male and female faces. Together, these findings are difficult to reconcile with the diagnostic-features account as originally formulated, while remaining compatible with the more limited possibility that face individuation relies on more similar information across racial groups than the account assumes.
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Francisco Cruz
Assistant Professor
Francisco Cruz is an assistant professor in Cognitive Psychology at Ispa - Instituto Universitário. Junior Consulting Editor at the Journal of European Social Psychology, 2025-present. Invited assistant professor at Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa (2026), and Faculdade de Ciências da Saúde, Universidade Europeia (2025-2026). Social Psychology Ph.D. on lay beliefs about science, supervised by Prof. André Mata (Universidade de Lisboa) and Prof. Tania Lombrozo (Princeton University), 2022-2025. Visiting Student Research Collaborator at Princeton University, 2023-2024. Society for General Psychology and Interdisciplinary Inquiry, Fulbright Portugal, and Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia awardee. His research interests include lay beliefs about science (i.e., what people believe that science can or cannot explain and why), motivated beliefs in science (i.e., the contexts in which people are more prone to accepting scientific explanations), representation of social groups (i.e., how people integrate information to provide judgments on shared homogeneity vs. heterogeneity across group members), epistemic trespassing (i.e., when people provide judgments on domains beyond those in which they are experts), intuitive mind-body dualism (i.e., a natural tendency to see the world as split in material and immaterial portions), and face perception (i.e., features driving the advantage in recall for own- vs. other-race faces).