Confusion

Abstract

Can we do better when it comes to the “other‐race effect”?

A few months ago, I chaired a scientific conference and a couple of days into the meeting, a colleague, let us call them Dr. A, approached Sarah Stanley to let her know she had organized a fantastic meeting. Sarah's slightly horrified response was, “Do you think I'm Heran?” Sarah, my friend and colleague—or for a shorter term “frolleague”—and I got a big laugh out of it, given we do not look much alike. Not long after this incident, Dr. A approached another frolleague, Aimee Shen, to let her know she gave a great talk. However, Aimee had not yet spoken and we realized Dr. A had confused her for Sarah. We laughed again and gave that confused person a pass. Maybe they just needed new glasses.

A few months after this meeting, I attended another conference where Sarah was present, as well as my esteemed frolleagues Bree Aldridge and Jessica Seeliger. At this conference, a student or postdoc chased Sarah down, calling out, “Dr. Aldridge! Dr. Aldridge!” Given that the pursuer was a trainee and possibly new to the field, maybe they could not quite tell the difference between Bree and Sarah. But then, there was this: a colleague, whom we shall call Dr. B, approached Sarah and called her Jessica. While Sarah pointed out that she was, in fact, not Jessica, Dr. B actually refused her rebuttal. At this point, Sarah had to hold up her name badge to indicate that she was truly not Jessica.

Palm, meet forehead.

Four days into this meeting, I declared victory for myself as I had not been misidentified—but I celebrated too soon. On the last morning, a colleague, Dr. C, warmly approached me with a hug as we had worked at the same institution many years ago. Dr. C then told me that I had given a great talk the night before. Given that I had not spoken at the meeting, I realized that they confused me with Jessica, who had, in fact, given a fantastic talk the night before. Dr. C was visibly mortified and apologized profusely.

The reader may have figured out by now that we are five microbiologists of East Asian heritage, despite most of our names having some European origin. To be honest, I am flattered to be mistaken for any of my younger, brilliant colleagues, and I would like to believe none of them would feel insulted for being mistaken for any other person in the group. But I highly doubt that anyone would confuse us for each other in a nonwork context, given that we really do not look anything alike; as Bree pointed out, “For one, our hairstyles are all different, and Heran wears glasses!”

Knowing I am a columnist for EMBO reports, Sarah—somewhat jokingly—suggested that I write my next piece on misidentifications of people from different ethnic backgrounds. To get the conversation started, we scheduled a Zoom session (Fig 1) to speak about our experiences. Maybe unsurprisingly, we acknowledged that we, too, suffer from facial recognition deficiencies. By welcoming this discussion, we hope to increase our own awareness and provide some advice to each other and the community at large. Importantly, we want to call attention to the misidentification that many scientists, particularly those of African or Latin heritage, frequently experience. This topic is far too expansive to discuss in this short piece, so we refer readers to these articles on the impact of the misidentification of individuals from traditionally underrepresented groups in the biomedical sciences (Calaza et al, ²⁰²¹; Camacho et al, ²⁰²¹).

Figure 1.

The Confusion Panel: Clockwise from the top right: Drs. Darwin, Seeliger, Stanley, Aldridge, and Shen.

The old trope that “all Asians look alike” is, while cringe‐worthy, actually a scientifically well‐documented phenomenon known as the “other‐race effect” that was proposed more than 100 years ago (Feingold, 1914; Natu & O'Toole, ²⁰¹³). In general, it states that folks, wherever one is from, may have difficulties differentiating faces from unfamiliar ethnic backgrounds. While there might be biological or cultural reasons that explain facial recognition problems, Aimee remarked that nonetheless “misidentification reminds you of your ‘otherness’, it makes you aware that your race is a defining characteristic of how others see you rather than you as an individual. I thought everyone saw me as no different from everyone else, but it makes you realize that being Asian is one of the first things people see.”

Our discussion raised a few important points about how the other‐race effect and bias affect our lives as scientists. Jessica made the important point that misidentification can be far more detrimental for trainees. Sarah brought up the “model minority” myth: “There will certainly be some people who will cry, ‘Asians are overrepresented in science’ or something. However, it is clear that there is inequity in leadership positions (Lu et al, ²⁰¹⁹) and funding for scientists of Asian heritage.” Aimee pointed out that to her surprise a recent New York Times article indicated that Asians receive less funding from the NSF than other groups (Chang, 2023), despite the fact that Asians are generally well‐represented in STEM fields. She further referred to an article about names and implicit biases that can affect hiring decisions (Moss‐Racusin et al, ²⁰¹²). Perhaps, it was my own awareness of bias against being Asian that I made a conscious decision to take my husband's Anglo last name. This idea made Bree, who has always had a non‐Asian last name, comment, “I wonder if I have avoided some bias for that reason.” Conveniently, I have also come to realize that “Heran” has been handy because it is gender‐neutral.

Going forward, we sought to come up with possible ways to minimize the muddles we have experienced at meetings. For one, we should make a conscious effort to remember what people look like as individuals, rather than relying on the shorthand of race—particularly if to start a conversation. Conference organizers could facilitate this tip by posting headshots of at least the speakers, much as many institutions post them for seminars. Another helpful change could be to wear name tags closer to the face, or at least somewhere more conspicuous than down by the navel. This small gesture would also help people like me who often struggle to remember names no matter a person's background.

At the end of the day, we should be recognized for the contributions we have made to our respective fields and not for our gender, heritage, or ethnic background. Moreover, we should endeavor to make everyone's faces aligned with their personae, even if it is not always easy to do so. At least, we all should try harder to not misidentify one another based on ethnic background.

Disclosure and competing interests statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

EMBO reports (2023) 24: e57041