scholarly journals Immigrant faceism: documentation statuses evoke racialized mental representations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Eduardo Martinez ◽  
DongWon Oh ◽  
Alexander Todorov
Keyword(s):  
Skin Color ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
Spatial Arrangement ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
Documentation Status ◽  
Positive Representations ◽  
Immigrant Men

Politicized U.S. immigration discourse has spurred interest in characterizing who illegalized immigrants are or perceived to be. What are the associated visual representations of migrant illegality? Across two studies with undergraduate and online samples (N = 686), we used face- based reverse correlation and spatial arrangement to capture representations of illegalized immigrant men and their differentiation from U.S. citizen or documented immigrant representations. Documentation statuses were differentially racialized. Immigrant representations were dark-skinned and classified as non-white, while citizen representations were light-skinned, evaluated positively, and classified as white. Legality further differentiated immigrant representations: documentation conjured positive representations, illegality conjured threatening representations. In a similarity task, participants used faces’ pixel luminance (e.g., skin color) and perceived American-ness to sort unlabeled faces by documentation status, confirming their representational distinctions. Illegalized immigrants were uniquely racialized as dark-skinned un- American threats, highlighting the continued impact of U.S. imperial projects and colorism in shaping representations of migrant illegality.

scholarly journals Mental representations of immigrants encode racialized expectations of socio-structural positions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Eduardo Martinez ◽  
DongWon Oh ◽  
Alexander Todorov
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
Target Category ◽  
European Immigrants ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Correlation Design ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Face Expressions

Illegalized immigrants are mentally associated with specific visual expectations (e.g., dark-skinned threats) and classifications (e.g., Latin American, Syrian, poor, economic drains). However, these findings provide only partial accounts of how migrant illegality is represented: visual representations could shift depending on the various societal positions or categories illegalized immigrants occupy. We therefore introduce a factorial cross-categorical reverse correlation design where online participants (N = 480) visualized immigrants simultaneously associated with certain documentation statuses (documented or undocumented), economic circumstances (job or welfare), and nationalities (Mexican, Irish, Chinese, or Nigerian). The resulting images and evaluations by naïve samples (N = 345) highlighted that: 1) illegality is not always visually encoded as darker skin, 2) affective face expressions hint at racialized expectations of European vs. non-European immigrants’ societal positions in the U.S., and 3) disaggregation of a target category is critical for understanding the relationship between categorical and visual mental representations.

The Impact of Visual Stereotypes on Judgments about Rape

2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-140
Author(s):  
Robert Busching ◽  
Johannes Lutz
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Irrelevant Information ◽  
Clear Distinction ◽  
Rape Myth ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
Correlation Technique ◽  
Specific Effects ◽  
Legal Judgments ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Legally irrelevant information like facial features is used to form judgments about rape cases. Using a reverse-correlation technique, it is possible to visualize criminal stereotypes and test whether these representations influence judgments. In the first step, images of the stereotypical faces of a rapist, a thief, and a lifesaver were generated. These images showed a clear distinction between the lifesaver and the two criminal representations, but the criminal representations were rather similar. In the next step, the images were presented together with rape scenarios, and participants (N = 153) indicated the defendant’s level of liability. Participants with high rape myth acceptance scores attributed a lower level of liability to a defendant who resembled a stereotypical lifesaver. However, no specific effects of the image of the stereotypical rapist compared to the stereotypical thief were found. We discuss the findings with respect to the influence of visual stereotypes on legal judgments and the nature of these mental representations.

scholarly journals Blatant dehumanization in the mind's eye: Prevalent even among those who explicitly reject it?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher D Petsko ◽  
Ryan Lei ◽  
Jonas R. Kunst ◽  
Emile Bruneau ◽  
Nour Kteily
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
The Political ◽  
Perceptual Task ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
General Tendency ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Political Right ◽  
Mind's Eye

Research suggests that some people, particularly those on the political right, have a tendency to blatantly dehumanize low-status groups. However, these findings have largely relied on self-report measures, which are notoriously subject to social desirability concerns. To better understand just how widely blatant forms of intergroup dehumanization might extend, the present paper leverages an unobtrusive, data-driven perceptual task to examine how U.S. respondents mentally represent ‘Americans’ vs. ‘Arabs’ (a low-status group in the U.S. that is often explicitly targeted with blatant dehumanization). Data from two reverse-correlation experiments (original N = 108; pre-registered replication N = 336) and seven rating studies (N = 2,301) suggest that U.S. respondents’ mental representations of Arabs are significantly more dehumanizing than their representations of Americans. Furthermore, analyses indicate that this phenomenon is not reducible to a general tendency for our sample to mentally represent Arabs more negatively than Americans. Finally, these findings reveal that blatantly dehumanizing representations of Arabs can be just as prevalent among individuals exhibiting low levels of explicit dehumanization (e.g., liberals) as among individuals exhibiting high levels of explicit dehumanization (e.g., conservatives)—a phenomenon into which exploratory analyses suggest liberals may have only limited awareness. Taken together, these results suggest that blatant dehumanization may be more widespread than previously recognized, and that it can persist even in the minds of those who explicitly reject it.

scholarly journals Uncovering mental representations of smiled speech using reverse correlation

2018 ◽  
Vol 143 (1) ◽  
pp. EL19-EL24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Ponsot ◽  
Pablo Arias ◽  
Jean-Julien Aucouturier
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Reverse Correlation

scholarly journals Different representations and strategies in mental rotation

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (7) ◽  
pp. 1574-1583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Binglei Zhao ◽  
Sergio Della Sala
Keyword(s):  
Mental Rotation ◽  
Visual Imagery ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Imagery Ability ◽  
Standard Object

It is still debated whether holistic or piecemeal transformation is applied to carry out mental rotation (MR) as an aspect of visual imagery. It has been recently argued that various mental representations could be flexibly generated to perform MR tasks. To test the hypothesis that imagery ability and types of stimuli interact to affect the format of representation and the choice of strategy in performing MR task, participants, grouped as good or poor imagers, were assessed using four MR tasks, comprising two sets of ‘Standard’ cube figures and two sets of ‘non-Standard’ ones, designed by withdrawing cubes from the Standard ones. Both good and poor imagers performed similarly under the two Standard conditions. Under non-Standard conditions, good imagers performed much faster in non-Standard objects than Standard ones, whereas poor imagers performed much slower in non-Standard objects than Standard ones. These results suggested that (1) individuals did not differ in processing the integrated Standard object, whereas (2) in processing the non-Standard objects, various visual representations and strategies could be applied in MR by diverse individuals: Good imagers were more flexible in generating different visual representations, whereas poor imagers applied different strategies under different task demands.

scholarly journals Mental Representations and Facial Impressions of Muslim Men in Japan From 2015 to 2017

SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824402199782
Author(s):  
Jun Moriya
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Random Noise ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
Noise Pattern ◽  
Basic Emotions ◽  
Muslim Men ◽  
The Face ◽  
Facial Representation

There is prejudice against Muslims in many nations, including Japan. This prejudice would be related to biased mental representations of Muslim faces. Moreover, in 2015, the increased news coverage linking Muslims to terrorism in Japan would have enhanced such negative mental representations. In the present study, Japanese participants were asked to imagine Muslim men, and from two faces with a random noise pattern added, participants were instructed to choose the face they imagined to be more Muslim. Typical Muslim facial representations were visualized in 2015, 2016, and 2017 by averaging all selected noise patterns using reverse correlation. The visualized representations were evaluated using the dimensions of warmth, competence, and basic emotions. The results showed that the warmth scores for the visualized facial representation were lower in 2015 than in 2017, whereas competence scores did not differ between the representations in 2015, 2016, and 2017. “Angry” and “disgusted” scores for the facial representation in 2015 were higher than those in 2017, whereas “happy” scores in 2015 were lower than those in 2017. The decreased “angry” score and increased “happy” score predicted an increase in the impression of warmth from 2015 to 2017.

Facing Europe

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 1583-1590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Imhoff ◽  
Ron Dotsch ◽  
Mauro Bianchi ◽  
Rainer Banse ◽  
Daniël H. J. Wigboldus
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
Projection Model ◽  
Indirect Measures

Individuals perceive their own group to be more typical of a shared superordinate identity than other groups are. This in-group projection process has been demonstrated with both self-report and indirect measures. The two studies reported here extend this research to the visual level, specifically, within the domain of faces. Using an innovative reverse-correlation approach, we found that German and Portuguese participants’ visual representations of European faces resembled the appearance typical for their own national identity. This effect was found even among participants who explicitly denied that one nation was more typical of Europe than the other (Study 1). Moreover, Study 2 provides experimental evidence that in-group projection is restricted to inclusive superordinate groups, as the effect was not observed for visual representations of a category (“Australian”) that did not include participants’ in-group. Implications for the in-group projection model, as well as for the applicability of reverse-correlation paradigms, are discussed.

When words become borders: Ingroup favoritism in perceptions and mental representations of Anglo-Canadian and Franco-Canadian faces

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 1021-1038
Author(s):  
R. Thora Bjornsdottir ◽  
Simon Yeretsian ◽  
Greg L. West ◽  
Nicholas O. Rule
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Structural Similarity ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
Subjective Ratings ◽  
Correlation Methods ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Linguistic Groups ◽  
Multiple Languages ◽  
Ingroup Favoritism

Language is critical to social identity, including nationality. However, some nations encompass multiple languages, raising questions about how their citizens perceive members of their national versus linguistic groups. We explored perceptions of Canadian nationality, which consists of two linguistic groups: Anglo-Canadians and Franco-Canadians. In Study 1, we used reverse correlation methods to visualize how Anglo- and Franco-Canadians mentally represent the faces of linguistic ingroup and outgroup members, and of Canadians in general. Structural similarity analyses and subjective ratings of the resulting images showed that both groups mentally represented Canadians as more similar to their own linguistic ingroup. In Study 2, Anglo-Canadians and Franco-Canadians rated photos of real Anglo- and Franco-Canadian targets. Both samples showed some ingroup favoritism when inferring their traits but only Anglo-Canadians could accurately differentiate group members. Differences between Anglo-Canadians and Franco-Canadians therefore extend beyond language, with linguistic groups impacting impressions before any words are spoken.

scholarly journals The Neglected C of Intercultural Relations. Cross-Cultural Adaptation Shapes Sojourner Representations of Locals

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kinga Bierwiaczonek ◽  
Sven Waldzus ◽  
Karen van der Zee
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Adaptation ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Local People ◽  
Intercultural Relations ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
Cognitive Level ◽  
Cross Cultural Adaptation

We investigated, by means of the Reverse Correlation Task (RCT), visual representations of the culturally dominating group of local people held by sojourners as a function of their degree of cross-cultural adaptation. In three studies, using three different methods (reduced RCT, full RCT, conceptual replication) with three independent samples of sojourners and seven independent samples of Portuguese and US-American raters, we gathered clear evidence that poor adaptation goes along with more negative representations of locals. This indicates that sojourner adaptation is reflected, at a social-cognitive level, in the valence of outgroup representations.

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