scholarly journals Broadening the Stimulus Set: Introducing the American Multiracial Faces Database

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Chen ◽  
Jasmine B Norman ◽  
Yeseul Nam
Keyword(s):  
Face Perception ◽  
Person Perception ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Racial Categories ◽  
Racial Ambiguity ◽  
Face Stimuli ◽  
Racially Ambiguous ◽  
Multiracial Faces ◽  
Ambiguous Faces

Face-based perceptions form the basis for how people behave towards each other and, hence, are central to understanding human interaction. Studying face perception requires a large and diverse set of stimuli in order to make ecologically valid, generalizable conclusions. To date, there are no publicly available databases with a substantial number of Multiracial or racially ambiguous faces. Our systematic review of the literature on Multiracial person perception documented that published studies have relied on computer-generated faces (84% of stimuli), Black-White faces (74%), and male faces (63%). We sought to address these issues, and to broaden the diversity of available face stimuli, by creating the American Multiracial Faces Database (AMFD). The AMFD is a novel collection of 110 faces with mixed-race heritage and accompanying ratings of those faces by naive observers that are freely available to academic researchers. The faces (smiling and neutral expression poses) were rated on attractiveness, emotional expression, racial ambiguity, masculinity, racial group membership(s), gender group membership(s), warmth, competence, dominance, and trustworthiness. The large majority of the AMFD faces are racially ambiguous and can pass into at least two different racial categories. These faces will be useful to researchers seeking to study Multiracial person perception as well as those looking for racially ambiguous faces in order to study categorization processes in general. Consequently, the AMFD will be useful to a broad group of researchers who are studying face perception.

scholarly journals Consequences of being unable to categorize: Racial ambiguity and spontaneous trait inferences

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasmine B Norman ◽  
Jacqueline Chen
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Perception ◽  
Impression Formation ◽  
Formation Process ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Racial Ambiguity ◽  
Spontaneous Trait Inferences ◽  
Trait Inferences ◽  
Racially Ambiguous

Limited research has examined impression formation in the context of dual or ambiguous group membership. This research examined the consequences of being unable to categorize by investigating the influence of racial ambiguity on spontaneous trait inferences (STIs). Participants (N = 112) completed a savings-in-relearning paradigm, designed to measure the formation of STIs (Carlston & Skowronski, 1994). STI formation for racially ambiguous and racially unambiguous (i.e., easily categorizable) faces was compared. Results suggest that racial ambiguity impaired perceiver’s ability to form STIs, a basic impression formation process. Implications of these findings for social perception and social interaction are discussed.

The neural basis of ideological differences in race categorization

2021 ◽  
Vol 376 (1822) ◽  
pp. 20200139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy R. Krosch ◽  
John T. Jost ◽  
Jay J. Van Bavel
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Mixed Race ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Racial Hierarchy ◽  
Racial Ambiguity ◽  
Subordinate Group ◽  
Group A ◽  
Racially Ambiguous ◽  
Ambiguous Faces

Multiracial individuals are often categorized as members of their ‘socially subordinate’ racial group—a form of social discrimination termed hypodescent—with political conservatives more likely than liberals to show this bias. Although hypodescent has been linked to racial hierarchy preservation motives, it remains unclear how political ideology influences categorization: Do conservatives and liberals see, feel or think about mixed-race faces differently? Do they differ in sensitivity to Black prototypicality (i.e. skin tone darkness and Afrocentric features) or racial ambiguity (i.e. categorization difficulty) of Black/White mixed-race faces? To help answer these questions, we collected a politically diverse sample of White participants and had them categorize mixed-race faces as Black or White during functional neuroimaging. We found that conservatism was related to greater anterior insula activity to racially ambiguous faces, and this pattern of brain activation mediated conservatives' use of hypodescent. This demonstrates that conservatives' greater sensitivity to racial ambiguity (rather than Black prototypicality) gives rise to greater categorization of mixed-race individuals into the socially subordinate group and tentatively suggests that conservatives may differ from liberals in their affective reactions to mixed-race faces. Implications for the study of race categorization and political psychology are discussed. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The political brain: neurocognitive and computational mechanisms'.

Are Morphs a Valid Substitute for Real Multiracial Faces in Race Categorization Research?

2021 ◽  
pp. 014616722198983
Author(s):  
Debbie S. Ma ◽  
Justin Kantner ◽  
Jonathan Benitez ◽  
Stephanie Dunn
Keyword(s):  
Face Perception ◽  
Potential Role ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Common Method ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Face Stimuli ◽  
Multiracial Faces

The rise of the multiracial population has been met with a growing body of research examining multiracial face perception. A common method for creating multiracial face stimuli in past research has been mathematically averaging two monoracial “parent” faces of different races to create computer-generated multiracial morphs, but conclusions from research using morphs will only be accurate to the extent that morphs yield perceptual decisions similar to those that would be made with real multiracial faces. The current studies compared race classifications of real and morphed multiracial face stimuli. We found that oval-masked morphed faces were classified as multiracial significantly more often than oval-masked real multiracial faces (Studies 1 and 2), but at comparable levels to unmasked real multiracial faces (Study 2). Study 3 examined factors that could explain differences in how morphs and real multiracial faces are categorized and pointed to the potential role that unusualness/distinctiveness might play.

Seeing Similarity or Distance?

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leigh Wilton ◽  
Diana T. Sanchez ◽  
Lisa Giamo
Keyword(s):  
Social Distance ◽  
Mixed Race ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Perceived Similarity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intergroup Perception ◽  
Intergroup Perceptions ◽  
Racially Ambiguous ◽  
Ambiguous Faces

Biracial individuals threaten the distinctiveness of racial groups because they have mixed-race ancestry, but recent findings suggest that exposure to biracial-labeled, racially ambiguous faces may positively influence intergroup perception by reducing essentialist thinking among Whites ( Young, Sanchez, & Wilton, 2013 ). However, biracial exposure may not lead to positive intergroup perceptions for Whites who are highly racially identified and thus motivated to preserve the social distance between racial groups. We exposed Whites to racially ambiguous Asian/White biracial faces and measured the perceived similarity between Asians and Whites. We found that exposure to racially ambiguous, biracial-labeled targets may improve perceptions of intergroup similarity, but only for Whites who are less racially identified. Results are discussed in terms of motivated intergroup perception.

scholarly journals Person perception across group boundaries: a dynamic model of perception across race and gender lines

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Yan-Jun Xie
Keyword(s):  
Face Perception ◽  
Impression Formation ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Person Perception ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Modeling Framework ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Trait Impressions

People form impressions of others from their faces, inferring character traits (e.g., friendly) along two broad, influential dimensions: Warmth and Competence. Although these two dimensions are presumed to be independent, research has yet to examine the generalizability of this model to cross-group impressions, despite extant evidence that Warmth and Competence are not independent for outgroup targets. This thesis explores this possibility by testing models of person perception for own-group and other-group perceptions, implementing confirmatory factor analysis in a structural equation modeling framework, and analyzing the underlying trait space using representational similarity analysis. I fit 402,473 ratings of 873 unique faces from 5,040 participants on 14 trait impressions to own-group and other-group models, exploring whether perceptions across race and gender are more unidimensional. Results indicate that current models of face perception fit poorly and are not universal as presumed: the space of trait impressions varies depending on targets’ race and gender. Keywords: person perception, impression formation, face perception, intergroup processes, social cognition

A Meta-Analytic Review of Hypodescent Patterns in Categorizing Multiracial and Racially Ambiguous Targets

2020 ◽  
pp. 014616722094132
Author(s):  
Danielle M. Young ◽  
Diana T. Sanchez ◽  
Kristin Pauker ◽  
Sarah E. Gaither
Keyword(s):  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Racial Group ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Analytic Review ◽  
Subgroup Analyses ◽  
Lower Status ◽  
Binary Choices ◽  
Racially Ambiguous ◽  
Ambiguous Faces

Research addressing the increasing multiracial population (i.e., identifying with two or more races) is rapidly expanding. This meta-analysis ( k = 55) examines categorization patterns consistent with hypodescent, or the tendency to categorize multiracial targets as their lower status racial group. Subgroup analyses suggest that operationalization of multiracial (e.g., presenting photos of racially ambiguous faces, or ancestry information sans picture), target gender, and categorization measurement (e.g., selecting from binary choices: Black or White; or multiple categorization options: Black, White, or multiracial) moderated categorization patterns. Operationalizing multiracial as ancestry, male targets, and measuring categorization with binary or multiple Likert-type scale outcomes supported hypodescent. However, categorizing multiracial targets as not their lower status racial group occurred for female targets or multiple categorization options. Evidence was mixed on whether perceiver and target race were related to categorization patterns. These results point to future directions for understanding categorization processes and multiracial perception.

Novelty preference in face perception by week-old lambs (Ovis aries)

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-128
Author(s):  
Orsola Rosa Salva ◽  
Simona Normando ◽  
Antonio Mollo ◽  
Lucia Regolin
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Face Perception ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Ovis Aries ◽  
The Other ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Face Stimulus ◽  
Novelty Preference ◽  
Photographic Images ◽  
Face Stimuli

An extensive literature has been accumulating, in recent years, on face-processing in sheep and on the relevance of faces for social interaction in this species. In spite of this, spontaneous preferences for face or non-face stimuli in lambs have not been reported. In this study we tested the spontaneous preference of 8-day-old lambs (N = 9) for three pairs of stimuli. In each pair, one stimulus was a face-like display, whereas the other presented the same inner features displaced in unnatural positions. One pair of stimuli was obtained from photographic images of ewes’ faces, the other two pairs were schematic face-like stimuli. Lambs could differentiate the two stimuli obtained by photos of conspecifics, looking longer at the non-face stimulus (p < 0.05). We interpret this as a novelty preference, proving that few day-old lambs have already encoded the structural properties that define a face and recognize violations of those general properties.

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