The Cross-Race Effect

The cross-race bias, also called as own-race bias or cross-race effect, in recognizing faces is the idea that people can better recognize faces from their own race, relative to those of other races. In brief, the theory explains how it is easier to focus on individualistic features to differentiate individuals within their own face, but not in other-race faces due to lack of familiarity. This is particularly important in evaluating how accurate eyewitness identification is: cross-race effect plays an important role in the process of identifying the true culprit among the suspects, particularly when the victim and the assailant are of a different race (Hourihan).
In recent years, there has been considerable interest in cross-race bias and the