Races and faces — a comparison of the responses of Africans and Europeans to faces of the same and different races

There is a popular belief that faces of members of races different from one's own ‘look more alike’ than those of one's own race. Empirical evidence shows that they differ in memorability. The present study was carried out to test the hypothesis that European and African subjects differ from each other in the cues they use to discriminate among faces of their own and of the other race. Subjects reported the cues by carrying out sorting of triads of faces, and subsequently rating all faces on these cues. INDSCAL analyses were applied to the data. With racially homogeneous sets of faces, European and African subjects did not differ in the basis on which judgements were made, although both used different bases for African than for European faces. When a racially heterogeneous set of faces was used, European subjects discriminated primarily in terms of racial features, but African subjects used a greater variety of cues.