Naturalistic facial variability modulates the magnitude of the other-race effect in face perception: Evidence from two face memory tests

Face perception is critical to social interaction, yet people consistently recognize own-race faces more accurately than other-race faces, a robust phenomenon known as the other-race effect (ORE). Although facial variability affects recognition, how naturalistic variations modulate the other-race effect remains unclear. To address this, we compared recognition performance on two standardized memory tests that differ in facial variability: the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT), which includes controlled variability (systematic changes in lighting, and pose), and the Variability Face Memory Test (VFMT), which incorporates high naturalistic variability (e.g., lighting, poses, expression, viewing distance, hairstyle, and appearance). Sixty East Asian young adults (18-25 years) with limited cross-race contact completed both tests using own-race (Asian) and other-race (White) face sets. Both tests assess between-person discrimination and within-person recognition of identities across variable images. Results revealed a significantly stronger ORE under high variability (VFMT), where recognition of other-race faces was substantially impaired relative to own-race faces. In contrast, the ORE was minimal under low variability (CFMT). These findings suggest that naturalistic facial variation disproportionately disrupts other-race face recognition, particularly in within-person recognition tasks. This supports theoretical accounts of compressed face-space representations for other-race faces, in which limited experience reduces tolerance for natural variability. Overall, these results highlight that real-world facial variability amplifies the ORE, emphasizing the role of perceptual experience with facial variability in cross-racial face recognition under natural conditions.