Mere social categorization modulates identification of facial expressions of emotion.

The ability of the human face to communicate emotional states via facial expressions is well known, and past research has established the importance and universality of emotional facial expressions. However, recent evidence has revealed that facial expressions of emotion are most accurately recognized when the perceiver and expresser are from the same cultural ingroup. The current research builds on this literature and extends this work. Specifically, we find that mere social categorization, using a minimal-group paradigm, can create an ingroup emotion–identification advantage even when the culture of the target and perceiver is held constant. Follow-up experiments show that this effect is supported by differential motivation to process ingroup versus outgroup faces and that this motivational disparity leads to more configural processing of ingroup faces than of outgroup faces. Overall, the results point to distinct processing modes for ingroup and outgroup faces, resulting in differential identification accuracy for facial expressions of emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Applying the attractor field model to social cognition: Perceptual discrimination is facilitated, but memory is impaired for faces displaying evaluatively congruent expressions.

A new model of mental representation is applied to social cognition: the attractor field model. Using the model, the authors predicted and found a perceptual advantage but a memory disadvantage for faces displaying evaluatively congruent expressions. In Experiment 1, participants completed a same/different perceptual discrimination task involving morphed pairs of angry-to-happy Black and White faces. Pairs of faces displaying evaluatively incongruent expressions (i.e., happy Black, angry White) were more likely to be labeled as similar and were less likely to be accurately discriminated from one another than faces displaying evaluatively congruent expressions (i.e., angry Black, happy White). Experiment 2 replicated this finding and showed that objective discriminability of stimuli moderated the impact of attractor field effects on perceptual discrimination accuracy. In Experiment 3, participants completed a recognition task for angry and happy Black and White faces. Consistent with the attractor field model, memory accuracy was better for faces displaying evaluatively incongruent expressions. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning (not) to talk about race: When older children underperform in social categorization.

The present research identifies an anomaly in sociocognitive development, whereby younger children (8 and 9 years) outperform their older counterparts (10 and 11 years) in a basic categorization task in which the acknowledgment of racial difference facilitates performance. Though older children exhibit superior performance on a race-neutral version of the task, their tendency to avoid acknowledging race hinders objective success when race is a relevant category. That these findings emerge in late childhood, in a pattern counter to the normal developmental trajectory of increased cognitive expertise in categorization, suggests that this anomaly indicates the onset of a critical transition in human social development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distortions in the perceived lightness of faces: The role of race categories.

Although lightness perception is clearly influenced by contextual factors, it is not known whether knowledge about the reflectance of specific objects also affects their lightness. Recent research by O. H. MacLin and R. Malpass (2003) suggests that subjects label Black faces as darker than White faces, so in the current experiments, an adjustment methodology was used to test the degree to which expectations about the relative skin tone associated with faces of varying races affect the perceived lightness of those faces. White faces were consistently judged to be relatively lighter than Black faces, even for racially ambiguous faces that were disambiguated by labels. Accordingly, relatively abstract expectations about the relative reflectance of objects can affect their perceived lightness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

(Why) do I think what you think? Epistemic social tuning and implicit prejudice.

This research examines whether people who experience epistemic motivation (i.e., a desire to acquire knowledge) came to have implicit attitudes consistent with the apparent beliefs of another person. People had lower implicit prejudice when they experienced epistemic motivation and interacted with a person who ostensibly held egalitarian beliefs (Experiments 1 and 2). Implicit prejudice was not affected when people did not experience epistemic motivation. Further evidence shows that this tuning of implicit attitudes occurs when beliefs are endorsed by another person, but not when they are brought to mind via means that do not imply that person's endorsement (Experiment 3). Results suggest that implicit attitudes of epistemically motivated people tune to the apparent beliefs of others to achieve shared reality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social categorization and the perception of facial affect: Target race moderates the response latency advantage for happy faces.

Two experiments competitively test 3 potential mechanisms (negativity inhibiting responses, feature-based accounts, and evaluative context) for the response latency advantage for recognizing happy expressions by investigating how the race of a target can moderate the strength of the effect. Both experiments indicate that target race modulates the happy face advantage, such that European American participants displayed the happy face advantage for White target faces, but displayed a response latency advantage for angry (Experiments 1 and 2) and sad (Experiment 2) Black target faces. This pattern of findings is consistent with an evaluative context mechanism and inconsistent with negativity inhibition and feature-based accounts of the happy face advantage. Thus, the race of a target face provides an evaluative context in which facial expressions are categorized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive adaptation to the experience of social and cultural diversity.

Diversity is a defining characteristic of modern society, yet there remains considerable debate over the benefits that it brings. The authors argue that positive psychological and behavioral outcomes will be observed only when social and cultural diversity is experienced in a way that challenges stereotypical expectations and that when this precondition is met, the experience has cognitive consequences that resonate across multiple domains. A model, rooted in social categorization theory and research, outlines the preconditions and processes through which people cognitively adapt to the experience of social and cultural diversity and the resulting cross-domain benefits that this brings. Evidence is drawn from a range of literatures to support this model, including work on biculturalism, minority influence, cognitive development, stereotype threat, work group productivity, creativity, and political ideology. The authors bring together a range of differing diversity experiences and explicitly draw parallels between programs of research that have focused on both perceiving others who are multicultural and being multicultural oneself. The findings from this integrative review suggest that experiencing diversity that challenges expectations may not only encourage greater tolerance but also have benefits beyond intergroup relations to varied aspects of psychological functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The space between us: Stereotype threat and distance in interracial contexts.

Four studies investigate the role that stereotype threat plays in producing racial distancing behavior in an anticipated conversation paradigm. It was hypothesized that the threat of appearing racist may have the ironic effect of causing Whites to distance themselves from Black conversation partners. In Study 1, participants distanced themselves more from Black partners under conditions of threat, and this distance correlated with the activation of a "White racist" stereotype. In Study 2, it was demonstrated that Whites' interracial distancing behavior was not predicted by explicit or implicit prejudice. Study 3 provides evidence that conceiving of interracial interactions as opportunities to learn may attenuate the negative consequences of threat for Whites. Study 4 found that Whites have conscious access to their experience of stereotype threat and that this awareness may mediate the relationship between threat and distance. These results are discussed within a broader discourse of racial distancing and the possibility that certain identity threats may be as important as prejudice in determining the outcomes of interracial interactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Research methods in social relations, with especial reference to prejudice; Vol. I: Basic processes; Vol. II: Selected techniques.

Reviews the book, "Research methods in social relations, with especial reference to prejudice; Vol. I: Basic processes; Vol. II: Selected techniques," by Marie Jahoda, Morton Deutsch, and Stuart W. Cook (see record 1953-02637-000). The reviewer notes that the two volumes show the impacts of their sponsorship, and of the many hands which have been laid upon them. There is a sense of urgency in the book's treatment of problems of social intolerance and discrimination, and an implication of mild, but persistent, exhortation to the reader to take constructive steps in combating these evils. For the scientific reader the proper course is to be found in "action research" (participative research directed toward the solution of tangible problems), and for the social practitioner the recommended course is cooperation with the scientific investigator. In spite of the instances of apparent over-earnestness and occasional naiveness which occur in the book, it still remains a useful and informative document. It would be an excellent source book for nonspecialists, and for students who wish to gain a brief, but competent and comprehensive overview of this field of research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional processes in stereotype formation: A common model for category accentuation and illusory correlation.

Stereotype formation may be based on the exaggeration of real group differences (category accentuation) or the misperception of group differences that do not exist (illusory correlation). This research sought to account for both phenomena with J. K. Kruschke's (1996, 2001, 2003) attention theory of category learning. According to the model, the features of majority groups are learned earlier than the features of minority groups. In turn, the features that become associated with a minority are those that most distinguish it from the majority. This second process is driven by an attention-shifting mechanism that directs attention toward group-attribute pairings that facilitate differentiation of the two groups and may lead to the formation of stronger minority stereotypes. Five experiments supported this model as a common account for category accentuation and distinctiveness-based illusory correlation. Implications for the natures of stereotype formation, illusory correlation, and impression formation are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Older adults' configural processing of faces: Role of second-order information.

Problems with face recognition are frequent in older adults. However, the mechanisms involved have only been partially discovered. In particular, it is unknown to what extent these problems may be related to changes in configural face processing. Here, we investigated the face inversion effect (FIE) together with the ability to detect modifications in the vertical or horizontal second-order relations between facial features. We used a same/different unfamiliar face discrimination task with 33 young and 33 older adults. The results showed dissociations in the performances of older versus younger adults. There was a lack of inversion effect during the recognition of original faces by older adults. However, for modified faces, older adults showed a pattern of performance similar to that of young participants, with preserved FIE for vertically modified faces and no detectable FIE for horizontally modified faces. Most importantly, the detection of vertical modifications was preserved in older relative to young adults whereas the detection of horizontal modifications was markedly diminished. We conclude that age has dissociable effects on configural face-encoding processes, with a relative preservation of vertical compared to horizontal second-order relations processing. These results help to understand some divergent results in the literature and may explain the spared familiar face identification abilities in the daily lives of older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mapping functional brain development: Building a social brain through interactive specialization.

The authors review a viewpoint on human functional brain development, interactive specialization (IS), and its application to the emerging network of cortical regions referred to as the social brain. They advance the IS view in 2 new ways. First, they extend IS into a domain to which it has not previously been applied--the emergence of social cognition and mentalizing computations in the brain. Second, they extend the implications of the IS view from the emergence of specialized functions within a cortical region to a focus on how different cortical regions with complementary functions become orchestrated into networks during human postnatal development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Structural resemblance to emotional expressions predicts evaluation of emotionally neutral faces.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 9(4) of Emotion (see record 2009-11528-009). In this article a symbol was incorrectly omitted from Figure 1, part C. To see the complete article with the corrected figure, please go to http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0014681.] People make trait inferences based on facial appearance despite little evidence that these inferences accurately reflect personality. The authors tested the hypothesis that these inferences are driven in part by structural resemblance to emotional expressions. The authors first had participants judge emotionally neutral faces on a set of trait dimensions. The authors then submitted the face images to a Bayesian network classifier trained to detect emotional expressions. By using a classifier, the authors can show that neutral faces perceived to possess various personality traits contain objective resemblance to emotional expression. In general, neutral faces that are perceived to have positive valence resemble happiness, faces that are perceived to have negative valence resemble disgust and fear, and faces that are perceived to be threatening resemble anger. These results support the idea that trait inferences are in part the result of an overgeneralization of emotion recognition systems. Under this hypothesis, emotion recognition systems, which typically extract accurate information about a person's emotional state, are engaged during the perception of neutral faces that bear subtle resemblance to emotional expressions. These emotions could then be misattributed as traits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stimulus type, level of categorization, and spatial-frequencies utilization: Implications for perceptual categorization hierarchies.

The type of visual information needed for categorizing faces and nonface objects was investigated by manipulating spatial frequency scales available in the image during a category verification task addressing basic and subordinate levels. Spatial filtering had opposite effects on faces and airplanes that were modulated by categorization level. The absence of low frequencies impaired the categorization of faces similarly at both levels, whereas the absence of high frequencies was inconsequential throughout. In contrast, basic-level categorization of airplanes was equally impaired by the absence of either low or high frequencies, whereas at the subordinate level, the absence of high frequencies had more deleterious effects. These data suggest that categorization of faces either at the basic level or by race is based primarily on their global shape but also on the configuration of details. By contrast, basic-level categorization of objects is based on their global shape, whereas category-specific diagnostic details determine the information needed for their subordinate categorization. The authors conclude that the entry point in visual recognition is flexible and determined conjointly by the stimulus category and the level of categorization, which reflects the observer’s recognition goal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The social psychology of perceived prejudice and discrimination.

Most research on prejudice has followed a unidirectional orientation of investigating why or when majority- or dominant-group members become prejudiced toward members of minority or subordinate groups without considering the effects of prejudice and discrimination upon its victims. By contrast, my research program over the past quarter century deals with the "phenomenology" of prejudice and discrimination from the perspective of the victim and has sought to answer questions such as the following: What is it like to be discriminated against on the basis of an arbitrary characteristic such as ethnicity, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, etc.? What are the social-psychological and affective correlates and consequences to individuals who confront prejudice and discrimination by virtue of membership in a minority or subordinate group? This paper presents a sampling of my research on the "phenomenology" of prejudice and discrimination, along with several theoretical perspectives that I have used and developed to help to understand this issue. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Holistic processing of faces: Perceptual and decisional components.

Researchers have used several composite face paradigms to assess holistic processing of faces. In the selective attention paradigm, participants decide whether one face part (e.g., top) is the same as a previously seen face part. Their judgment is affected by whether the irrelevant part of the test face is the same as or different than the relevant part of the study face. This failure of selective attention implies holistic processing. However, the authors show that this task alone cannot distinguish between perceptual and decisional sources of holism. The distinction can be addressed by the complete identification paradigm, in which both face parts are judged to be same or different, combined with analyses based on general recognition theory (F. G. Ashby & J. T. Townsend, 1986). The authors used a different paradigm, sequential responses, to relate these 2 paradigms empirically and theoretically. Sequential responses produced the same results as did selective attention and complete identification. Moreover, disruptions of holistic processing by systematic misalignment of the faces corresponded with systematic and significant changes in the decisional components, but not in the perceptual components, that were extracted using general recognition theory measures. This finding suggests a significant decisional component of holistic face processing in the composite face task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpreting neutral faces as threatening is a default mode for socially anxious individuals.

The authors of the present study used an incidental learning paradigm to investigate the interpretation of neutral facial expressions in socially anxious individuals. Participants were asked to detect the location of a target following the presentation of a facial picture (i.e., cue). Unbeknownst to participants, the target location was contingent on the valence of the cue, and participants thus learned to associate different target locations with either positive or negative facial expressions. The authors subsequently used this learned association to assess interpretive biases. If socially anxious individuals interpret neutral faces in a negative manner, they should be faster to detect a target that appears in the location that is associated with negative face cues when the target is presented after a neutral face cue. The authors also assessed whether the anticipation of a feared situation influenced interpretive biases by comparing participants with and without a speech threat on this task. Results indicate that socially anxious individuals are characterized by an interpretive bias regardless of the threat manipulation. In contrast, nonanxious individuals interpreted neutral faces in a negative manner only when they were in the threat condition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of personal and shared threats upon social prejudice.

The effects of varying types of threat-arousing communications upon the expression of social prejudice was examined. Personal threat groups showed a greater increase in social prejudice than did the control group. Shared threat groups showed a decrease in prejudice in comparison with the control group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Revisiting the role of spatial frequencies in the holistic processing of faces.

V. Goffaux and B. Rossion (2006) argued that holistic processing of faces is largely supported by low spatial frequencies (LSFs) but less so by high spatial frequencies (HSFs). We addressed this claim using a sequential matching task with face composites. Observers judged whether the top halves of aligned or misaligned composites were identical. We replicated the V. Goffaux and B. Rossion (2006) results, finding a greater alignment effect in accuracy for LSF compared with HSF faces on same trials. However, there was also a greater bias for responding "same" for HSF compared with LSF faces, indicating that the alignment effects arose from differential response biases. Crucially, comparable congruency effects found for LSF and HSF suggest that LSF and HSF faces are processed equally holistically. These results demonstrate that it is necessary to use measures that take response biases into account in order to fully understand the holistic nature of face processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)