scholarly journals Revisiting the relationship between implicit racial bias and audiovisual benefit for nonnative-accented speech

Author(s):  
Drew J. McLaughlin ◽  
Violet A. Brown ◽  
Sita Carraturo ◽  
Kristin J. Van Engen
2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katheryn Russell-Brown

AbstractIn recent years, there has been a surge of discussion, debate, and research on the topic of implicit bias. Implicit bias has become the go-to form of racial bias that many academics, practitioners, and policy makers have identified as important and timely to study (Eberhardt et al., 2004; Levinson and Smith, 2017). Interventions to address implicit racial bias in policing have been particularly popular (Fridell 2008). Arguably, combatting implicit racial bias presents itself as a tool for protecting civil rights. This essay examines the emergence of the implicit bias paradigm as a way to address racial bias in justice system outcomes. The first part provides an overview of implicit bias, including how it is defined, how it is measured, and how it impacts the justice system. The second part examines the term “implicit bias.” This section assesses implicit bias as a social problem and considers whether the label illuminates or obscures the reality of racial bias in the criminal justice system. The discussion considers whether “implicit bias” is viewed as a more appealing approach for dealing with racial bias because it does not assign racial blame. The third part considers the contours of the relationship between implicit bias and explicit bias. The discussion highlights the interconnectedness between the two forms of racial bias. Is the implicit bias approach a signal of racial retrenchment? The final section considers how elementary and secondary education could be used as a proactive strategy for addressing implicit racial bias.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Drew Jordan McLaughlin ◽  
Violet Aurora Brown ◽  
Sita Carraturo ◽  
Kristin J. Van Engen

Speech intelligibility is improved when the listener can see the talker in addition to hearing their voice. Notably, however, previous work has suggested that this “audiovisual benefit” for nonnative (i.e., foreign-accented) speech is smaller than the benefit for native speech, an effect that may be partially accounted for by listeners’ implicit racial biases (Yi et al., 2013). In the present study, we sought to replicate these findings in a significantly larger sample of online participants. In a direct replication of Yi et al. (Experiment 1), we found that audiovisual benefit was indeed smaller for nonnative- relative to native-accented speech. However, our results did not support the conclusion that implicit racial biases, as measured with two types of implicit association tasks, were related to these differences in audiovisual benefit for native and nonnative speech. In a second experiment, we addressed a potential confound in the experimental design; specifically, to ensure that the difference in audiovisual benefit was caused by a difference in accent rather than a difference in overall intelligibility, we reversed the overall difficulty of each accent condition by presenting them at different signal-to-noise ratios. Even when native speech was presented at a much more difficult intelligibility level than nonnative speech, audiovisual benefit for nonnative speech remained poorer. In light of these findings, we discuss alternative explanations of reduced audiovisual benefit for nonnative speech, as well as methodological considerations for future work examining the intersection of social, cognitive, and linguistic processes.


2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (12) ◽  
pp. 1748-1756 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle van Ryn ◽  
Rachel Hardeman ◽  
Sean M. Phelan ◽  
Diana J. Burgess PhD ◽  
John F. Dovidio ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Willem Hendrik Gravett

The centrality of race to our history and the substantial racial inequalities that continue to pervade society ensure that "race" remains an extraordinarily salient and meaningful social category.  Explicit racial prejudice, however, is only part of the problem.  Equally important - and likely more pervasive - is the phenomenon of implicit racial prejudice: the cognitive processes whereby, despite even our best intentions, the human mind automatically classifies information in racial categories and against disfavoured social groups. Empirical research shows convincingly that these biases against socially disfavoured groups are (i) pervasive; (ii) often diverge from consciously reported attitudes and beliefs; and (iii) influence consequential behaviour towards the subjects of these biases. The existence of implicit racial prejudices poses a challenge to legal theory and practice. From the standpoint of a legal system that seeks to forbid differential treatment based upon race or other protected traits, if people are in fact treated differently, and worse, because of their race or other protected trait, then the fundamental principle of anti-discrimination has been violated. It hardly matters that the source of the differential treatment is implicit rather than conscious bias. This article investigates the relevance of this research to the law by means of an empirical account of how implicit racial bias could affect the criminal trial trajectory in the areas of policing, prosecutorial discretion and judicial decision-making.  It is the author's hypothesis that this mostly American research also applies to South Africa. The empirical evidence of implicit biases in every country tested shows that people are systematically implicitly biased in favour of socially privileged groups. Even after 1994 South Africa – similar to the US – continues to be characterised by a pronounced social hierarchy in which Whites overwhelmingly have the highest social status. The author argues that the law should normatively take cognizance of this issue.  After all, the mere fact that we may not be aware of, much less consciously intend, race-contingent behaviour does not magically erase the harm. The article concludes by addressing the question of the appropriate response of the law and legal role players to the problem of implicit racial bias.


2022 ◽  
Vol 226 (1) ◽  
pp. S296
Author(s):  
Thammatat Vorawandthanachai ◽  
Calvin E. Lambert ◽  
David Flomenbaum ◽  
Francine Hughes

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