Development of differential recognition for own- and other-race faces.

Subjects (N = 106) ranging in age from six to 20 years performed two face-recognition tasks--one with Caucasians' photo portraits and one with Orientals'. Although the youngest children recognized both kinds of faces equally well, recognition accuracy for Caucasian faces was superior to that for Oriental faces among older subjects. Results are interpreted in terms of development of a familiar-face schema which facilitates recognition of exemplars of the more familiar sort of face with increasing age and experience. Boys and girls recognized faces about equally well up to approximately age 13; at that age a trend appeared for girls to be superior to boys in recognizing faces. Females at college level were clearly superior to males at recognizing faces.