Cross-race effect in facial processing As @analystic has noted,
there is substantial research documenting what is sometimes
called the "cross-race effect": Cross-race effect (sometimes
called cross-race bias, other-race bias or own-race bias) is the
tendency for people of one race to have difficulty recognizing
and processing faces and facial expressions of members of a race
or ethnic group other than their own. For an overview of
research see the meta-analysis by Meissner and Brigham (2001).
To quote parts of the abstract: Data were analyzed from 39
research articles, involving 91 independent samples and nearly
5,000 participants. Measures of hit and false alarm rates, and
aggregate measures of discrimination accuracy and response
criterion were examined, including an analysis of 8 study
moderators. ... Overall, results indicated a "mirror effect"
pattern in which own-race faces yielded a higher proportion of
hits and a lower proportion of false alarms compared with other-
race faces. Note that the effect is