of similar magnitude between the looking behavior of Asian observers, who tend to fixate the center of the face, and European observers, who tend to fixate major facial features (e.g., eyes), for both own- and other-race faces. This was previously explained as stemming from a more clustered density-gradient for other-race faces than same race faces. The reasoning is that this causes more nodes to become activated in reaction to an other-race face, resulting in faster classification, but less discriminability in terms of memory. However, these exemplar-based theories cannot explain why faces that are ambiguous in terms of social category information can influence recognition. Further, other work suggests that many basic perceptual decisions such as inferring a face's identity are computed within the first one or two fixations. These initial fixations are highly similar across ethnicities/cultures of the face/observer, suggesting that critical traits such as familiarity, identity, and sex/gender are computed with a common eye movement and perceptual encoding strategy shared across humans, with culture/ethnicity-specific differences only emerging later on in the scan path. Contact hypothesis theory One method researchers have suggested to help mollify the prevalence of the cross race effect is through application of the contact hypothesis. Accurate recognition and identification of other-race faces, researchers have deduced, stems from a difference in learning experiences that relate to individual ethnic groups. The cross race effect can be reduced by continual exposure ethnic groups that differ from one's own; the more positive interactions that occur between two ethnic groups, the more heterogeneous the ethnicities will seem to be. The type of contact experienced between the two ethnic groups also plays a major role in this hypothesis' effectiveness; the more intimate the contact, the higher the chances become of accurately recognizing a member of a different ethnicity than one's own As an example, research done on Asian and white students living in Singapore and Canada showed a significant cross race effect that was not able to be predicted by perceived familiarity with the other race. Previously seen as evidence against the contact hypothesis, it is now seen as evidence that the depth of contact is an important factor. Empirical findings The cross-race effect across ethnic groups Although most studies done about the cross race effect are with black and white participants, there are also numerous studies done with people of different ethnic backgrounds. For example, there are studies done that compare Hispanic