Psychology Department, Fylde College, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YF, UK.
University of Koblenz-Landau, Koblenz-Landau, Germany.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2018 Oct;18(5):825-836. doi: 10.3758/s13415-018-0607-3.
Social categorization appears to be an automatic process that occurs during person perception. Understanding social categorization better is important because mere categorization can lead to stereotype activation and, in turn, to discrimination. In the present study we used a novel approach to examine event-related potentials (ERPs) of gender categorization in the "Who said what?" memory paradigm, thus allowing for a more in-depth understanding of the specific mechanisms underlying identity versus categorization processing. After observing video clips showing a "discussion" among female and male targets, participants were shown individual statements, each accompanied by one of the discussants' faces. While we measured ERPs, participants had to decide whether or not a given statement had previously been made by the person with the accompanying face. In same-person trials, statements were paired with the correct person, whereas in the distractor trials, either a same-gender or a different-gender distractor was shown. As expected, participants were able to reject different-gender distractors faster than same-gender distractors, and they were more likely to falsely choose yes for a same-gender than for a different-gender distractor. Both findings indicate gender-based categorization. ERPs, analyzed in a 300- to 400-ms time window at occipito-temporal channels, indicated more negative amplitudes for yes responses both for the same person and for same-gender distractors, relative to different-gender distractors. Overall, these results show gender-based categorization even when the task was to assess the identifying information in a gender-neutral context. These findings are interpreted as showing that gender categorization occurs automatically during person perception, but later than race- or age-based categorization.
社会分类似乎是一种在人知觉过程中自动发生的过程。更好地理解社会分类很重要，因为仅仅分类就可能导致刻板印象的激活，进而导致歧视。在本研究中，我们使用了一种新的方法来研究“谁说了什么？”记忆范式中的性别分类的事件相关电位（ERP），从而更深入地了解身份与分类处理背后的特定机制。在观察完显示女性和男性目标“讨论”的视频剪辑后，参与者会看到单个陈述，每个陈述都伴有一个讨论者的面孔。当我们测量 ERP 时，参与者必须决定给定的陈述是否之前是由带有伴随面孔的人说出的。在相同人物的试验中，陈述与正确的人物配对，而在分心试验中，显示的是相同性别的分心者或不同性别的分心者。正如预期的那样，参与者能够更快地拒绝不同性别的分心者，而不是相同性别的分心者，并且他们更有可能错误地选择同一个性别而不是不同性别的分心者。这两个发现都表明存在基于性别的分类。在 300-400 毫秒时间窗口内在枕颞通道中分析的 ERP 表明，对于相同的人和相同性别的分心者，相对于不同性别的分心者，对于是响应的振幅更负。总体而言，这些结果表明即使在性别中立的背景下评估识别信息，也存在基于性别的分类。这些发现可以解释为表明性别分类在人知觉过程中自动发生，但比基于种族或年龄的分类晚。
