Rosenblum, Shaina2024-07-022024-07-022023-05https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/34552Our impressions of others are influenced by a variety of factors that can ultimately impact our ability to accurately remember them. When we inaccurately identify another, there can be harmful consequences. This is especially the case within the U.S. judicial system, where incorrect eyewitness memory, particularly of racial out-group members, has contributed to a sizeable number of wrongful convictions. We investigated the influence of target race, person knowledge valence, and perceiver interracial contact on White perceivers’ ability to recognize and recall information associated with Black and White male faces. Over five behavioral training sessions, White participants (n=60) learned about Black and White male faces that were paired with positive person-knowledge, negative person-knowledge, or no information and were subsequently tested on their memory. On the fifth day, they completed individual difference measures, including a lifetime interracial contact questionnaire. Results revealed that after five days of behavioral training, participants were better able to recognize White faces compared to Black faces and faces paired with person-knowledge compared to faces paired with no information. Additionally, participants demonstrated better recall of person-knowledge statements paired with White faces than with Black faces. These results offer insight into how target race and person-knowledge availability influence memory of learned faces. Future analysis will examine the development of these effects over five behavioral training sessions and the involvement of specific brain regions during impression formation of people varying in race and familiarity.en-USThesis