Culture shapes face perception : Comparisons of Egypt and the UK

The psychological literature reports a variety of cross-cultural differences in cognition, but most of these are based on comparisons of Western and Asian observers. Here, we discuss quantitative and qualitative cross-cultural differences in face processing between Western (British) and Middle-Eastern (Egyptian) observers. First, the perceptual basis of the well-established other-race effect in face processing is reviewed. Second, we discuss a qualitative cross-cultural difference in the relative importance of internal and external features for the matching of unfamiliar faces, which appears to reflect the long-term experience of Middle-Eastern observers in perceiving faces with headscarves. Third, we discuss how cultural differences in reading direction affect the well-established left visual field bias in face processing. We conclude that cultural differences between Western and Middle-Eastern observers, such as those reflecting headdress traditions and reading direction, influence the perception of faces.