Pyasik Maria, Proverbio Alice Mado, Pia Lorenzo
SAMBA (SpAtial, Motor and Bodily Awareness) Research Group, Department of Psychology, University of Turin, 10124 Turin, Italy.
Cognitive Electrophysiology Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milan, Italy.
iScience. 2023 Sep 28;26(10):108085. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.108085. eCollection 2023 Oct 20.
Racial bias-nonconscious behavioral inclinations against people of other ethnic groups-heavily contributes to inequality and discrimination. Immersive virtual reality (IVR) can reduce implicit racial bias through the feeling of owning (embodying) a virtual body of a different "race"; however, it has been demonstrated only behaviorally for the implicit attitudes. Here, we investigated the implicit (racial IAT) and the neurophysiological (the N400 component of the event-related potentials for verbal stimuli that violated negative racial stereotypes) correlates of the embodiment-induced reduction of the implicit racial bias. After embodying a Black avatar, Caucasian participants had reduced implicit racial bias (IAT) but both groups showed the typical N400. This is the first evidence to suggest that virtual embodiment affects the evaluative component of the implicit biases but not the neurophysiological index of their cognitive component (i.e., stereotyping). This can inform interventions that promote inclusivity through the implicit/indirect procedures, such as embodiment.
种族偏见——对其他种族群体的无意识行为倾向——在很大程度上导致了不平等和歧视。沉浸式虚拟现实（IVR）可以通过拥有（体现）不同“种族”的虚拟身体的感觉来减少隐性种族偏见；然而，这仅在行为层面上针对隐性态度得到了证明。在此，我们研究了体现诱发的隐性种族偏见减少的隐性（种族内隐联想测验）和神经生理学（针对违反负面种族刻板印象的言语刺激的事件相关电位的N400成分）相关性。在体现了一个黑人化身之后，白人参与者的隐性种族偏见（内隐联想测验）有所减少，但两组都表现出典型的N400。这是首个表明虚拟体现会影响隐性偏见的评价成分，但不会影响其认知成分（即刻板印象）的神经生理学指标的证据。这可以为通过隐性/间接程序（如体现）促进包容性的干预措施提供参考。
