Origin and Development of the "Other-Race Effect" in Children

对“错误定罪”案例的分析发现，错误的目击者指认导致无辜的人被定罪，比所有其他因素加起来还要多。在这些案例中，后续证据（如DNA分析）表明被定罪的人没有犯罪。先前的研究表明，目击者错误的一个关键因素是，人们对不同种族的面孔的识别能力比自己种族的面孔更差；这种现象被称为“其他种族效应”。对成年人的研究已经清楚地证明了这种影响的普遍性，但很少有人知道这种影响是何时产生的，或者它在童年时期的发展过程是怎样的。在当前的项目中，通过对四个发展阶段（二年级、六年级、十年级和大学二年级）的年轻非裔美国人和白人的影响进行研究，解决了这一知识差距。该项目的目标是了解这种影响在整个童年时期是如何发展的，以及是否以及如何改变这种影响。除了提供关于人类感知和记忆的重要基本信息外，这些研究还应为刑事和民事司法系统中与儿童打交道的证人提供有用的信息。这些发现对于那些制定有关如何最好地获取、解释和利用来自不同年龄儿童的目击者记忆报告的政策的人来说尤其重要。

Analyses of "wrongful convictions," cases in which subsequent evidence (e.g., DNA analyses) has indicated that the convicted person was not guilty of the crime, have found that incorrect eyewitness identifications have led to more convictions of innocent people than have all other factors combined. Prior research has shown that a key factor on eyewitness mistakes is the tendency for people to recognize faces of a different race more poorly than faces of their own race; this phenomenon has been called the "other-race effect." Research with adults has clearly demonstrated the pervasiveness of this effect, but little is known about when this effect originates or what its course of development may be through childhood. This gap in knowledge is addressed in the current project by examining the effect in young African Americans and Whites at four developmental levels (second graders, sixth graders, tenth graders, and college sophomores). The goals of the project are to understand how the effect develops across childhood, and whether and how it can be changed. In addition to yielding important basic information about human perception and memory, these studies should provide useful information to those who work with children as witnesses in the criminal and civil justice systems. The findings should be particularly relevant to those who formulate policies about how best to obtain, interpret, and utilize eyewitness memory reports from children of various ages.