Discourse Context Immediately Overrides Gender Stereotypes during Discourse Reading: Evidence from ERPs
This study investigated how local gender stereotype information interacts with discourse context during Chinese discourse reading. Event-related potentials were recorded while participants read two-sentence discourses, in which the first sentence provided the discourse context that either introduced...
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| Format: | Article |
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MDPI AG
2023-02-01
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| Series: | Brain Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/13/3/387 |
| _version_ | 1797613113087885312 |
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| author | Yanan Du Yaxu Zhang |
| author_facet | Yanan Du Yaxu Zhang |
| author_sort | Yanan Du |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This study investigated how local gender stereotype information interacts with discourse context during Chinese discourse reading. Event-related potentials were recorded while participants read two-sentence discourses, in which the first sentence provided the discourse context that either introduced a gender stereotype-countering attitude towards roles, such as “One should strive for the target job, and getting a job should not be restricted by gender”., or was neutral. The second sentence contained the critical clause in which the stereotypical gender of the object noun (a role name) was either consistent or inconsistent with the gender specified by the head noun (a kinship term) of the subject noun phrase, as in “Li’s [daughter/son] became a nurse…”. The object nouns elicited a larger N400 and a larger late negativity (LN) for the inconsistent compared to the consistent conditions in the neutral contexts. Crucially, when the discourse context offered information countering gender stereotypes, both the N400 and LN effects were reversed, with the negativities being smaller for the inconsistent compared to the consistent conditions. The reversal of the N400 effects suggests that discourse contexts can immediately override the processing of gender stereotypes, and thus readers compute discourse context and local pragmatic information simultaneously during discourse reading. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-11T06:50:24Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-2f8c032539a74f498f85d5660a69fdb1 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-3425 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-11T06:50:24Z |
| publishDate | 2023-02-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Brain Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-2f8c032539a74f498f85d5660a69fdb12023-11-17T09:59:07ZengMDPI AGBrain Sciences2076-34252023-02-0113338710.3390/brainsci13030387Discourse Context Immediately Overrides Gender Stereotypes during Discourse Reading: Evidence from ERPsYanan Du0Yaxu Zhang1School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing 100871, ChinaSchool of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing 100871, ChinaThis study investigated how local gender stereotype information interacts with discourse context during Chinese discourse reading. Event-related potentials were recorded while participants read two-sentence discourses, in which the first sentence provided the discourse context that either introduced a gender stereotype-countering attitude towards roles, such as “One should strive for the target job, and getting a job should not be restricted by gender”., or was neutral. The second sentence contained the critical clause in which the stereotypical gender of the object noun (a role name) was either consistent or inconsistent with the gender specified by the head noun (a kinship term) of the subject noun phrase, as in “Li’s [daughter/son] became a nurse…”. The object nouns elicited a larger N400 and a larger late negativity (LN) for the inconsistent compared to the consistent conditions in the neutral contexts. Crucially, when the discourse context offered information countering gender stereotypes, both the N400 and LN effects were reversed, with the negativities being smaller for the inconsistent compared to the consistent conditions. The reversal of the N400 effects suggests that discourse contexts can immediately override the processing of gender stereotypes, and thus readers compute discourse context and local pragmatic information simultaneously during discourse reading.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/13/3/387gender stereotypespragmaticsdiscourse contextlanguage comprehensionevent-related brain potentials |
| spellingShingle | Yanan Du Yaxu Zhang Discourse Context Immediately Overrides Gender Stereotypes during Discourse Reading: Evidence from ERPs Brain Sciences gender stereotypes pragmatics discourse context language comprehension event-related brain potentials |
| title | Discourse Context Immediately Overrides Gender Stereotypes during Discourse Reading: Evidence from ERPs |
| title_full | Discourse Context Immediately Overrides Gender Stereotypes during Discourse Reading: Evidence from ERPs |
| title_fullStr | Discourse Context Immediately Overrides Gender Stereotypes during Discourse Reading: Evidence from ERPs |
| title_full_unstemmed | Discourse Context Immediately Overrides Gender Stereotypes during Discourse Reading: Evidence from ERPs |
| title_short | Discourse Context Immediately Overrides Gender Stereotypes during Discourse Reading: Evidence from ERPs |
| title_sort | discourse context immediately overrides gender stereotypes during discourse reading evidence from erps |
| topic | gender stereotypes pragmatics discourse context language comprehension event-related brain potentials |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/13/3/387 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT yanandu discoursecontextimmediatelyoverridesgenderstereotypesduringdiscoursereadingevidencefromerps AT yaxuzhang discoursecontextimmediatelyoverridesgenderstereotypesduringdiscoursereadingevidencefromerps |