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Abstract

Whether recognition and categorization are parallel or serial processes remains controversial. To
address this, we investigated whether face recognition is influenced by task-irrelevant face categ-
ories. We examined the recognition of a target face presented in the context of other faces of
the same or different racial category using a same ^ different matching task. Caucasian partici-
pants were presented during learning with a set of six faces displaying one target face among
different numbers of same-race faces. Participants recognized Caucasian targets better when five
same-race faces rather than a single same-race face were present in the set, while this effect was
absent for Asian targets. Surprisingly, participants recognized Asian targets better in sets with
equal numbers of Asian and Caucasian context faces. Similar experiments, but with novel
objects, were conducted in which categories were defined by similarity or expertise. These factors
did not fully account for the context effects observed with faces. Overall, the results suggest
that face recognition and categorization interact but other factors such as task difficulty may
also affect face recognition.