A matter of design: Priming context and person perception

A matter of considerable debate is whether people spontaneously use categorical knowledge (i.e., stereotypes) to guide their interactions with others. Despite initial evidence for the unconditional automaticity of category activation, recent research has identified a range of factors that moderate this process. Extending this line of inquiry, the current investigation explored the extent to which contextual influences—specifically the order in which priming stimuli are presented to participants—may modulate person categorization. Using a standard semantic-priming paradigm to index category and stereotype activation, participants were presented with priming stimuli that were either intermixed or blocked by sex. The results revealed that: (i) category and stereotype activation are moderated by the order in which priming stimuli are presented; and (ii) priming effects decrease monotonically as a function of category repetition. The theoretical implications of these findings are considered.     

A face with a cue: exploring the inevitability of person categorization

Recent research has explored the dynamics of categorical thinking, with debate centering on the putative automaticity of this process. In a further investigation of this topic, the current inquiry assessed the influence of critical category‐cueing facial features on overt (i.e., category identification) and covert (i.e., category priming) measures of sex categorization. The results revealed that when a critical sex‐specifying facial cue (i.e., hairstyle) was present, priming effects emerged even under suboptimal processing conditions (i.e., facial blurring). When this cue was absent, however, priming no longer occurred. Interestingly, category identification was largely unimpeded by feature removal or facial blurring. Taken together, these results underscore the efficiency of categorical thinking and the importance of task objectives and feature‐based processing in person perception. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dude looks like a lady: Exploring the malleability of person categorization

Recent research has documented how single facial features can trigger person categorization. Questions remain, however, regarding the automaticity of the reported effects. Using a modified flanker paradigm, the current investigation explored the extent to which hair cues drive sex categorization when faces comprise task‐irrelevant (i.e., unattended) stimuli. In three experiments, participants were required to classify target forenames by gender while ignoring irrelevant flanking faces with and without hair cues. When present, hair cues were either congruent or incongruent with prevailing cultural stereotypes. The results demonstrated the potency of category‐specifying featural cues. First, flanker interference only emerged when critical hair cues were present (Experiment 1). Second, flankers with stereotype‐incongruent hairstyles (e.g., men with long hair) facilitated access to information associated with the opposite sex (Experiment 2), even when the flankers were highly familiar celebrities (Experiment 3). The theoretical implications of these findings are considered. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The perceptual determinants of person construal: reopening the social-cognitive toolbox

Guided by a heuristic account of social-cognitive functioning, researchers have attempted to identify the cognitive benefits that derive from a categorical approach to person construal. While revealing, this work has overlooked the fact that, prior to the application of categorical thinking as an economizing mental tool, perceivers must first extract category-triggering information from available stimulus cues. It is possible, therefore, that basic perceptual processes may also contribute to people's propensity to view others in a category-based manner. This possibility was explored in 3 experiments in which the authors investigated the ease with which perceivers can extract categorical and identity-based knowledge from faces under both optimal and suboptimal (i.e., inverted faces, blurred faces, rapidly presented faces) processing conditions. The results confirmed that categorical knowledge is extracted from faces more efficiently than identity-related knowledge, a finding that underscores the importance of perceptual operations in the generation of categorical thinking.     

Familiarity and person construal: Individuating knowledge moderates the automaticity of category activation

In this experiment, we examined how perceivers' familiarity with targets moderates person construal. Based on evidence from object categorization that level of construal varies with expertise in a manner that maximizes cue validity, we reasoned that although social (i.e., group‐level) categorization is functional for construing unfamiliar others (about whom little or no individuating information is available), it is less functional for familiar others (about whom a great deal of individuating information is available). Results from an automatic priming paradigm provided evidence for our reasoning: Participants categorized unfamiliar faces according to the most salient categorical dimension available in the visual information (in this case, sex), but did not do so for familiar faces. Implications for models of person perception are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gender Stereotype Activation versus Lexical Semantic Activation: An ERP Study

It is an open question whether social stereotype activation can be distinguished from nonsocial semantic activation. To address this question, gender stereotype activation (GSA) and lexical semantic activation (LSA) were directly compared. EEGs were recorded in 20 participants as they identified the congruence between prime-target word pairs under four different conditions (stereotype congruent, stereotype incongruent, semantic congruent, and semantic incongruent). We found that congruent targets elicited faster and more accurate responses and reduced N400 amplitudes irrespective of priming category types. The N400 congruency effect (i.e., the difference between incongruity and congruity) started earlier and had greater amplitude for GSA than for LSA. Moreover, gender category priming induced a smaller N400 and a larger P600 than lexical category priming. These findings suggest that the brain is not only sensitive to both stereotype and semantic violation in the post-perceptual processing stage but can also differentiate these two information processes. Further, the findings suggest superior processing (i.e., faster and deeper processing) when the words are associated with social category and convey stereotype knowledge.     

A dynamic interactive theory of person construal

A dynamic interactive theory of person construal is proposed. It assumes that the perception of other people is accomplished by a dynamical system involving continuous interaction between social categories, stereotypes, high-level cognitive states, and the low-level processing of facial, vocal, and bodily cues. This system permits lower-level sensory perception and higher-order social cognition to dynamically coordinate across multiple interactive levels of processing to give rise to stable person construals. A recurrent connectionist model of this system is described, which accounts for major findings on (a) partial parallel activation and dynamic competition in categorization and stereotyping, (b) top-down influences of high-level cognitive states and stereotype activations on categorization, (c) bottom-up category interactions due to shared perceptual features, and (d) contextual and cross-modal effects on categorization. The system's probabilistic and continuously evolving activation states permit multiple construals to be flexibly active in parallel. These activation states are also able to be tightly yoked to ongoing changes in external perceptual cues and to ongoing changes in high-level cognitive states. The implications of a rapidly adaptive, dynamic, and interactive person construal system are discussed.     

Who or what are you?: Facial orientation and person construal

An extensive literature has documented the cognitive benefits that accrue from a categorical conception of others. While informative, this work has overlooked the fact that, prior to the application of categorical thinking as an economizing cognitive tool, perceivers must first extract category-triggering information from available facial cues. What this suggests is that an impetus to construe others categorically may reside in the perceptual operations that guide the preliminary stages of person understanding. This possibility was explored in three experiments that investigated the effects of stimulus rotation on the efficiency of identity-based and category-based construal. In the first experiment, sex categorization was compared directly to identity-based construal. Subsequent experiments then investigated the efficiency of sex (Experiment 2) and race (Experiment 3) categorization when critical category-specifying facial cues were present and absent. The results demonstrated that categorical responding is driven by the extraction of featural information from faces, a finding that informs recent theoretical accounts of person perception. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Accuracy and awareness in the perception and categorization of male sexual orientation

For clear and unambiguous social categories, person perception occurs quite accurately from minimal cues. This article addresses the perception of an ambiguous social category (male sexual orientation) from minimal cues. Across 5 studies, the authors examined individuals' actual and self-assessed accuracy when judging male sexual orientation from faces and facial features. Although participants were able to make accurate judgments from multiple facial features (i.e., hair, the eyes, and the mouth area), their perceived accuracy was calibrated with their actual accuracy only when making judgments based on hairstyle, a controllable feature. These findings provide evidence that suggests different processes for extracting social category information during perception: explicit judgments based on obvious cues (hairstyle) and intuitive judgments based on nonobvious cues (information from the eyes and mouth area). Differences in the accuracy of judgments based on targets' controllability and perceivers' awareness of cues provides insight into the processes underlying intuitive predictions and intuitive judgments.     

基于面孔知觉的刻板印象激活两阶段模型

从个体建构研究视角出发, 考察了基于面孔知觉的刻板印象激活过程。实验一比较了性别分类判断、启动范式以及同时呈现范式下刻板印象匹配性判断三者所用反应时的差异, 结果发现, 后者显著地大于前二者, 且等于前二者之和; 面孔倒置呈现使同时呈现范式下刻板印象匹配判断的反应时和错误率显著增大, 但其对启动范式中刻板印象匹配判断的反应时和错误率没有影响。实验二基于同时呈现范式, 通过不同程度的面孔变形来操纵性别类别提取的难度, 更精确地探讨了基于面孔知觉的社会类别信息提取过程对刻板印象激活的影响, 结果表明, 随着从面孔中提取类别信息难度的增加, 刻板印象激活所用的反应时也逐渐增大。研究结果证实了研究者所提出的刻板印象激活两阶段模型, 即基于面孔知觉的社会类别提取阶段和刻板印象信息激活阶段, 证实社会类别激活和刻板印象信息激活是两个分离的过程, 以社会类别信息提取为目的的面孔知觉对刻板印象的激活有显著影响。     

Will a category cue attract you? Motor output reveals dynamic competition across person construal

People use social categories to perceive others, extracting category cues to glean membership. Growing evidence for continuous dynamics in real-time cognition suggests, contrary to prevailing social psychological accounts, that person construal may involve dynamic competition between simultaneously active representations. To test this, the authors examined social categorization in real-time by streaming the x, y coordinates of hand movements as participants categorized typical and atypical faces by sex. Though judgments of atypical targets were largely accurate, online motor output exhibited a continuous spatial attraction toward the opposite sex category, indicating dynamic competition between multiple social category alternatives. The authors offer a dynamic continuity account of social categorization and provide converging evidence across categorizations of real male and female faces (containing a typical or an atypical sex-specifying cue) and categorizations of computer-generated male and female faces (with subtly morphed sex-typical or sex-atypical features). In 3 studies, online motor output revealed continuous dynamics underlying person construal, in which multiple simultaneously and partially active category representations gradually cascade into social categorical judgments. Such evidence is challenging for discrete stage-based accounts.     

Are you looking at me? Eye gaze and person perception

Previous research has highlighted the pivotal role played by gaze detection and interpretation in the development of social cognition. Extending work of this kind, the present research investigated the effects of eye gaze on basic aspects of the person–perception process, namely, person construal and the extraction of category–related knowledge from semantic memory. It was anticipated that gaze direction would moderate the efficiency of the mental operations through which these social–cognitive products are generated. Specifically, eye gaze was expected to influence both the speed with which targets could be categorized as men and women and the rate at which associated stereotypic material could be accessed from semantic memory. The results of two experiments supported these predictions: Targets with nondeviated (i.e., direct) eye gaze elicited facilitated categorical responses. The implications of these findings for recent treatments of person perception are considered.     

Blonde like me: When self-construals moderate stereotype priming effects on intellectual performance

Stereotype priming can lead to assimilation or contrast effects on behavior. We argue that self-activation is a moderator of both assimilation and contrast effects. To test this hypothesis, in two studies, we activated independent or interdependent self-knowledge before priming participants with the dumb Blonde stereotype or a control category (Study 1) or no prime (Study 2). Participants then answered a knowledge test. Results support our expectations: Participants presented assimilation under interdependence (i.e., underperformance compared to control group) while they presented no assimilation (i.e., comparable performance with control group in Study 1) and contrast (better performance than control group in Study 2) under independence. We discuss implications of these findings in regards of previous research and recent models such as the Active Self Account [Wheeler, S. C., DeMarree, K. G., & Petty, R. E. (2005). The roles of the self in priming-to-behavior effects. In A. Tesser, J. V. Wood, & D. A. Stapel (Eds.), On building, defending and regulating the self: A psychological perspective (pp. 245-271). New York, NY, USA: Psychology Press].     

The development of memory structure as reflected by semantic-priming effects

This study was designed to investigate the development of knowledge about categorical and associative relationships as reflected by the presence or absence of semantic priming effects. Kindergarteners and second-graders were shown pairs of pictures, one picture at a time, and asked to name each picture as rapidly and accurately as possible. Picture pairs were of four types which reflected the factorial combination of associative relatedness (high and low) with categorial relatedness (high and low). An analysis of naming times revealed a significant main effect of associative relatedness, i.e., second pictures or “target” pictures in high-associative pairs were named faster than those in low-associative pairs. This reduction in naming latency, or priming effect, was independent of developmental level. However, the effects of category relatedness varied with developmental level, i.e., target pictures in high-categorical pairs were named significantly faster than those in low pairs by second-graders, but not by kindergarteners. These findings are discussed in terms of previous estimates of children's semantic competence.     

The categorical structure of knowledge for famous people (and a novel application of Centre-Surround theory)

Knowledge of familiar people is essential to guide social interaction, yet there is uncertainty about whether semantic knowledge for people is stored in a categorical structure as for objects. Four priming experiments using hard-to-perceive primes investigated whether occupation forms a category connecting famous persons in semantic memory. Primes were famous faces exposed for 17ms with masking, resulting in severely restricted awareness and thus precluding expectancy-based priming effects. Targets were consciously perceptible famous faces (Experiments 1-3), famous names (Experiment 3), or occupations (Experiment 4) representing either the same or different occupation to the prime. Significant priming demonstrated the operation of automatic processes, including spreading activation, among persons sharing a common occupation; this supports the categorical view. The direction of priming (faster/slower responses to same-occupation than different-occupation targets) was dependent on prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (Experiments 1-3) and type of target (Experiment 4). This pattern of results is attributed to the Centre-Surround mechanism proposed by Carr and Dagenbach [Carr, T. H., & Dagenbach, D. (1990). Semantic priming and repetition priming from masked words: evidence for a centre-surround attentional mechanism in perceptual recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 16, 341-350]. These results support (a) the categorical structure of semantic knowledge for famous people and (b) the application of the Centre-Surround mechanism to the domain of person recognition.     

Cues and categories: Revisiting paths to racial phenotypicality bias

We conducted a targeted review of the literature exploring racial phenotypicality bias (RPB): perceivers' sensitivity to within-race variation in facial target features in perceptions and judgment of others. This review revealed evidence that two distinct mechanisms underlying these effects, categorical and featural, tend to be conflated in the literature. The categorical route suggests that the pathway from target cues to stereotype application is mediated by category activation. The featural route suggests that the pathway from target cues to stereotype application is direct, bypassing category activation. The categorical route is more closely represented when researchers discuss RPB, and more often of empirical focus. With a focus on research exploring RPB toward African American people, we explain the two routes and evidence supporting their distinction. We next offer evidence estimating the degree to which they may be conflated in the empirical literature and discuss limitations to our approach. Next, we describe some potential implications of this conflation for theory, research, and applications concerning RPB. Finally, we end with some recommendations for future empirical research.     

Behavioral rebound following stereotype suppression

Attempts to suppress stereotypes have often been found to result in an increased accessibility of these stereotypes. According to thought suppression literature together with research on prime‐to‐behavior effects, we hypothesized that suppression of stereotype can lead people to subsequently behave in accordance with its content and that these effects are stronger after suppression (rebound) than after a classical priming condition (i.e., no‐suppression condition). Experiment 1 showed that suppression of the stereotype of sportsmen (associated with poor math performance) but not of Italian men (not related to math performance) led participants to subsequently perform worse on a calculus task in comparison to non‐suppressors. These effects were replicated in a second experiment with another stereotype (elderly) and another behavior that does not require self‐regulation (walking speed): Suppressors walked slower than non‐suppressors. These findings are considered in the context of mental control and social stereotyping. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Event-related potentials indicate different processes to mediate categorical and associative priming in person recognition

Whether representations of people are stored in associative networks based on co-occurrence or are stored in terms of more abstract semantic categories is a controversial question. In the present study, participants performed fame decisions to unfamiliar or famous target faces (Experiment 1) or names (Experiment 2), which were primed, either by highly associated celebrity names or by names from the same occupational category, or were unprimed. Reaction times and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Reaction times yielded significant priming effects for both associated and same category conditions. ERPs to targets in the associated condition were significantly more positive than were ERPs in all other conditions over central and parietal areas (300-600 ms; N400 priming effect). By contrast, a more posterior effect was found for categorical priming. These findings held for both cross-domain (Experiment 1) and within-domain conditions (Experiment 2). Results (a) demonstrate behavioral and ERP evidence for categorical priming in person recognition, consistent with the assumption that shared semantic information units can mediate semantic priming, and (b) suggest that associative and categorical priming are based on mechanisms that are at least partially different.     

An investigation of time course of category and semantic priming

Low semantically similar exemplars in a category demonstrate the category-priming effect through priming of the category (i.e., exemplar-category-exemplar), whereas high semantically similar exemplars in the same category demonstrate the semantic-priming effect (i.e., direct activation of one high semantically similar exemplar by another). The author asked whether the category- and semantic-priming effects are based on a common memory process. She examined this question by testing the time courses of category- and semantic-priming effects. She tested participants on either category- or semantic-priming paradigm at 2 different time intervals (6 min and 42 min) by using a lexical decision task using exemplars from categories. Results showed that the time course of category priming was different from that of semantic priming. The author concludes that these 2 priming effects are based on 2 separate memory processes.     

Effects of Gendered Language on Gender Stereotyping in Computer‐Mediated Communication: The Moderating Role of Depersonalization and Gender‐Role Orientation

This experiment examined what situational and dispositional features moderate the effects of linguistic gender cues on gender stereotyping in anonymous, text‐based computer‐mediated communication. Participants played a trivia game with an ostensible partner via computer, whose comments represented either prototypically masculine or feminine language styles. Consistent with the social identity model of deindividuation effects, those who did not exchange brief personal profiles with their partner (i.e., depersonalization) were more likely to infer their partner’s gender from the language cues than those who did. Depersonalization, however, facilitated stereotype‐consistent conformity behaviors only among gender‐typed individuals; that is, participants conformed more to their masculine‐ than feminine‐comment partners, and men were less conforming than were women, only when they were both gender‐typed and depersonalized.