ORE

The phenomenon where people find it harder to distinguish between faces of individuals from a different racial or ethnic group is known as the “Other-Race Effect” (ORE) or “Cross-Race Effect”. It has been well-documented in psychological and neuroscientific research.

Key Reasons Why This Happens:

🧠 1. 

Perceptual Expertise and Experience

• We become better at recognizing the types of faces we see most often.
• If someone grows up primarily around people of their own race, their brain becomes “tuned” to notice subtle differences in those faces.
• Less exposure to other-race faces leads to more generalized processing, where individuals of another race may be perceived as looking more similar.

👁 2. 

Holistic vs. Feature-Based Processing

• People process own-race faces more holistically — as a unified whole.
• Other-race faces are often processed in a more piecemeal or feature-based way (e.g., focusing on nose or eyes), which is less effective for accurate recognition.

🧬 3. 

Ingroup/Outgroup Effects (Social Categorization)

• The brain tends to categorize others as “ingroup” (same race) or “outgroup” (other race).
• We naturally allocate more attention and memory resources to ingroup members.
• Outgroup members are often encoded with less detail, making them harder to remember later.

🧪 4. 

Neuroscience Findings

• Brain imaging studies show greater fusiform face area (FFA) activation (the part of the brain involved in face recognition) when people view own-race faces compared to other-race faces.
• This suggests neural efficiency is higher for familiar face types.

🧠 5. 

Implicit Bias and Stereotyping

• Implicit attitudes can influence how attentively and accurately we observe other-race individuals.
• These biases may unconsciously reduce the motivation to differentiate or individuate members of an outgroup.

Can It Be Reduced?

Yes — exposure, training, and diverse social interaction improve the ability to recognize other-race faces. For example:

• People raised in multicultural environments tend to show a weaker Other-Race Effect.
• Police and security personnel undergo face recognition training to help overcome this bias.

Summary Quote:

“You become an expert in recognizing the types of faces you grow up around — it’s not about race per se, it’s about experience.”

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