The Impact of Psychological Features of Interethnic Perception on the Quality of Investigative Activities in a Multicultural Society

The paper addresses the systemic problem of how psychological features of interethnic perception affect the objectivity of law enforcement activities in a multicultural society. Central attention is given to the phenomenon of the cross-race effect — a consistent reduction in the accuracy of identifying individuals of a different ethnic background. From the standpoint of cognitive psychology, this effect is explained through the mechanisms of configurational and fragmentary strategies for processing visual information. The author analyses how implicit biases and ethnic stereotypes can determine