An account of the own-race bias and the contact hypothesis based on a ‘face space’ model of face recognition

It is necessary to start with a note on our use of the term ‘race’. Throughout this chapter we use the term ‘race’ in a sociological sense to refer to the various racial groups with which people identify themselves (e.g. black, white). As distinctions among human ‘races’ cannot be made on the basis of defining genetic characteristics, the definition of ‘race’ is dependent upon social, cultural and political factors (Reber, 1985).