面孔识别的本族效应指,个体对本族面孔总是比不熟悉的异族面孔有更好的再认。研究者对该效应提出多种解释。这些理论可分成三大类:侧重于社会认知的接触假说、效用分析;侧重于面孔表征的多维空间理论、整体/部分假说;侧重于加工过程的认知忽视和注意、加工水平说、内群/外群模型、双加工理论。每种观点与其他观点既有区别,又有联系,但均不能很好地解释现有的研究结果。未来的研究需致力于直接操纵可能影响本族效应的因素。
The own-race effect refers to the finding that faces of one's own race are better recognized than faces of other less familiar race.Plenty of explanations of this effect can be grouped into three categories:The Contact Hypothesis and the Utilitarian Analysis originate from social cognition;the Multidimensional Space Theory and the Configural-featural Hypothesis center on representation of faces;the Cognitive Disregard and Attention, the Level of Processing, the In-group/Out-group Model and the Dual-process Approach focus on face processing.All of existing theories are distinct but connected with each others.We argue that these theories fail to provide a convincing explanation to the own-race effect.Researches that directly manipulate possible factors influencing the own-race effect are needed in the future.