The Science Behind ‘They All Look Alike to Me’

[ttt]

www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/nyregion/the-science-behind-they-all-look-alike-to-me.html?_r=0


The outcry was immediate and ferocious when a white New York City police officer tackled James Blake, the retired biracial tennis star, while arresting him this month in a case of mistaken identity. The officer mistook Mr. Blake for a black man suspected of credit card fraud, according to the police.

Racism, pure and simple, some said.
 
But was it?

Scientists, pointing to decades of research, believe something else was at work. They call it the “other-race effect,” a cognitive phenomenon that makes it harder for people of one race to readily recognize or identify individuals of another.

It is not bias or bigotry, the researchers say, that makes it difficult for people to distinguish between people of another race. It is the lack of early and meaningful exposure to other groups that often makes it easier for us to quickly identify and remember people of our own ethnicity or race while we often struggle to do the same for others.

That racially loaded phrase “they all look alike to me,” turns out to be largely scientifically accurate, according to Roy S. Malpass, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Texas at El Paso who has studied the subject since the 1960s. “It has a lot of validity,” he said.
 
Looking for examples? There is no shortage — in the workplace, at schools and universities, and, of course, on the public stage.

Lucy Liu, the actress, has been mistaken for Lisa Ling, the journalist. “It’s like saying Hillary Clinton looks like Janet Reno,” Ms. Liu told USA Today.

Samuel L. Jackson, the actor, took umbrage last year when an entertainment reporter confused him with the actor Laurence Fishburne during a live television interview.

“Really? Really?” said Mr. Jackson, chiding the interviewer. “There’s more than one black guy doing a commercial. I’m the ‘What’s in your wallet?’ black guy. He’s the car black guy. Morgan Freeman is the other credit card black guy.”

And as a Washington correspondent, I managed a strained smile every time white officials and others remarked on my striking resemblance to Condoleezza Rice, then the secretary of state in the Bush administration. (No, we do not look alike.)
 

The actress Lucy Liu, left, has said she has been mistaken for the journalist Lisa Ling, right. Credit From left, Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images; Bret Hartman/Reuters
Psychologists say that starting when they are infants and young children, people become attuned to the key facial features and characteristics of the those around them. Whites often become accustomed to focusing on differences in hair color and eye color. African-Americans grow more familiar with subtle shadings of skin color.

“It’s a product of our perceptual experience,” said Christian A. Meissner, a professor of psychology at Iowa State University, “the extent to which we spend time with, the extent to which we have close friends of another race or ethnicity.”

(Minorities tend to be better at cross-race identification than whites, Professor Meissner said, in part because they have more extensive and meaningful exposure to whites than the other way around.)
 
Distinguishing between two people of a race different from your own is certainly not impossible, cognitive experts say, but it can be difficult, even for those who are keenly aware of their limitations.
 
Alice O’Toole, a face-recognition expert and professor of behavioral and brain sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas, admits that she often confuses two of her Chinese graduate students, despite her expertise.
  
“It’s embarrassing, really embarrassing,” Professor O’Toole, the director of the university’s Face Perception Research Lab, said. “I think almost everyone has experienced it.”

But as Mr. Blake’s case has demonstrated, the other-race effect can have serious consequences, particularly in policing and the criminal justice system. (None of the experts interviewed condoned the white officer’s rough handling of Mr. Blake. “He shouldn’t have been treated that way,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said.)

Professor Malpass, who has trained police officers and border patrol agents, urges law enforcement agencies to make sure black or Hispanic officers are involved when creating lineups of black and Hispanic suspects. And he warns of the dangers of relying on cross-racial identifications from eyewitnesses, who can be fallible.

The good news is that we can improve our cross-racial perceptions, researchers say, particularly if there is a strong need to do so. A white woman relocating to Accra, Ghana, for instance, would heighten her ability to distinguish between black faces, just as a black man living in Shanghai would enhance his ability to recognize Asians. (Mr. Malpass believes that people who need to identify those of other races — in the workplace or elsewhere — are more likely to be successful than people who simply have meaningful experiences with members of other racial groups.)

In the meantime, people should remember that it can take time and effort to decode faces across color lines, said Professor Meissner, who found that he was sometimes confused for other white men by Hispanics when he lived in Miami and El Paso.

“I don’t think we should be offended,” he said. “This is really an ability issue. And a very unfortunate issue for Mr. Blake.”

[WanderingWinoZ]

Very interesting research. I'm wanting to make sure my kids are exposed to a variety of people from all races & ethnicities for a multitude of reasons.

[btay]

I don't think the issue people have is with the cop misidentifying him, but the fact that he decided that he needed to tackle the man to arrest him.

[rupertpenny]

I get that the research shows that this necessarily doesn't come naturally, but I also don't think it's that hard if you just pay attention.

But who knows, maybe I'll eat my words one day if my daughter can't tell the difference between white people. My H and I are the only white people she sees on a regular basis, she is otherwise surrounded by Asian people.

[pamela]

It's similar to language learning. Your brain learns to simplify the overwhelming inputs by screening out those it didn't experience when young. So some foreign words can become indistinguishable even after lots of training.

[meshaliuknits]

Sept 21, 2015 8:52:30 GMT -5 @246baje said:

Sept 21, 2015 8:24:57 GMT -5 btay said:

I don't think the issue people have is with the cop misidentifying him, but the fact that he decided that he needed to tackle the man to arrest him.

Exactly. When I read this article I was like way to miss the point. The science behind it doesn't make tackling a black man suspected of identity theft any more right.

And the act of tackling him instead of otherwise engaging with him was probably racially motivated because you know he feared for his safety or some shit.

This right here. Plus not bothering to try to verify that the name/image used by the ID thief wasn't catfished.

Also, those two dudes do look similar. Not twins, but I'd believe cousins.

[aurora]

Sept 21, 2015 8:58:47 GMT -5 meshaliuknits said:

Sept 21, 2015 8:52:30 GMT -5 @246baje said:

Exactly. When I read this article I was like way to miss the point. The science behind it doesn't make tackling a black man suspected of identity theft any more right.

And the act of tackling him instead of otherwise engaging with him was probably racially motivated because you know he feared for his safety or some shit.

This right here. Plus not bothering to try to verify that the name/image used by the ID thief wasn't catfished.

Also, those two dudes do look similar. Not twins, but I'd believe cousins.

Add me to this list, with the caveat that officers should be trained in this science and, realizing that they may not be able to tell one from the other as easily should practice an abundace of caution to ensure they don't injure the wrong person.

[twohearted]

I agree that it misses the point. It also seems like this is a manifestation of racism even if a person does not see themselves as being racist. With segregation there are less meaningful exposures to people of other races early in life which exacerbates this phenomenon.

[ttt]

Yeah, I think the connection to the Blake case is tenuous, because a. the guy and Blake *did* look a lot alike b. the real suspect wasn't even the right guy either and c. the issue isn't that he was arrested mistakenly, it's how he was treated while being arrested.

Still, the rest of it is pretty interesting.

[MrsAxilla]

Sept 21, 2015 10:18:34 GMT -5 ttt said:

Yeah, I think the connection to the Blake case is tenuous, because a. the guy and Blake *did* look a lot alike b. the real suspect wasn't even the right guy either and c. the issue isn't that he was arrested mistakenly, it's how he was treated while being arrested.

Still, the rest of it is pretty interesting.

I think tying it to the Blake case was just a way to make the article relevant to a current event, you know?

[lizard1131]

I don't think the point of this article was to talk about policing per se, but more why our brains do what they do and how to combat it. I do worry about my children in this sense. I was raised in the South with a high concentration of people of color in my schools and hometown, but where we live now there are very few people of color just in general and even less so in our school district. How do you actively seek our diversity without seeming like you want to 'collect black friends'? Growing up for me it was very organic, we were in the same activities and then worked together etc. This is rambly, but one of the reasons I actually feel like raising my kids in the North is to their detriment.

[NitaX]

I'm trying to find a nice way to answer the "how do you seek out diversity" questions without sounding snide. But, I can't. How do you seek out diversity? I dunno - maybe stop avoiding neighborhoods that aren't pretty much all white. *shrugs* Or - stop putting your kids in schools where there are only a handful of black folks.

You want diversity? Start living closer to folks who don't look like you.

[sparrowsong]

Sept 21, 2015 8:54:40 GMT -5 @vicmo said:

I struggle with this somewhat - I think I'm naturally not very good at facial recognition, and I do notice it is harder with people of other races. I do OK when I get to know people better, but meeting a bunch of new people is hard. I find the same thing with TV shows - if there are too many characters, it can take me a few episodes to tell them apart.

I mean, at least I rarely arrest and beat up the wrong person, haha.

I'm like this too. I'm just terrible at telling people apart, period. I'm really good at remembering names, but I am a total failure at facial recognition. 

I also remember my mom laughing at me when I was a kid. We were supposed to take the neighbor boy home from the swimming pool, and my mom sent me inside to find him. I came back outside and told her, "I can't find him. Boys all look the same when they are wet." 

So forget other races. I can't even tell the other sex apart.