Perceptual identification and the cross-race effect

Jessica L. Marcon, University of Texas at El Paso
Christian A. Meissner, University of Texas at El Paso
Michael Frueh, University of Texas at El Paso
Kyle J. Susa, University of Texas at El Paso
Otto H. MacLin, University of Northern Iowa

Abstract

The current research examined whether the cross-race effect (CRE) was evident in perceptual identification tasks and the extent to which certain boundary conditions moderated the effect. Across two experiments, a significant CRE was observed in measures of accuracy and response latency. As predicted, Experiment 1 showed that the CRE was exacerbated when encoding time was brief and test set size was increased. Experiment 2 replicated the effect of set size, but also showed that the CRE was more pronounced when the retention interval was lengthened. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.