Bilingualism shapes the other race effect

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Linguistics

Background:

• The other race effect (ORE) describes better recognition of own-race faces compared to other-race faces.
• Recent studies suggested bilingualism might eliminate the ORE.
• Bilingualism exists on a spectrum of proficiency, not as a binary state.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between bilingual proficiency and the magnitude of the other race effect.
• To determine if increasing proficiency in a second language diminishes the ORE.
• To explore the specific language skills (e.g., listening, speaking) associated with ORE reduction.

Main Methods:

• Administered the Asian and Caucasian Cambridge Face Memory Tests to bilingual Singaporean Chinese individuals.
• Assessed participants' self-reported cross-language proficiency, focusing on listening and speaking abilities.
• Controlled for factors including Caucasian exposure, own-race memory, age, and gender.

Main Results:

• Bilingual participants exhibited an ORE, but its magnitude decreased with higher reported cross-language proficiency.
• Chinese listening ability was the primary driver of this association, more so than English proficiency.
• The observed relationship remained significant after accounting for potential confounding variables like intelligence and demographic factors.

Conclusions:

• Increasing auditory bilingualism is associated with reduced perceptual narrowing for faces.
• The ORE may comprise both domain-specific face memory and domain-general individuation processes.
• Bilingualism's influence must be considered in research on the ORE and cultural effects on visual perception.