Angry facial expressions bias gender categorization in children and adults: behavioral and computational evidence
Angry faces are perceived as more masculine by adults. However, the developmental course and underlying mechanism (bottom-up stimulus driven or top-down belief driven) associated with the angry-male bias remain unclear. Here we report that anger biases face gender categorization towards male respond...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2015-03-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00346/full |
| _version_ | 1817985752585207808 |
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| author | Laurie eBayet Laurie eBayet Olivier ePascalis Olivier ePascalis Paul C. Quinn Kang eLee Edouard eGentaz Edouard eGentaz Edouard eGentaz James W. Tanaka |
| author_facet | Laurie eBayet Laurie eBayet Olivier ePascalis Olivier ePascalis Paul C. Quinn Kang eLee Edouard eGentaz Edouard eGentaz Edouard eGentaz James W. Tanaka |
| author_sort | Laurie eBayet |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Angry faces are perceived as more masculine by adults. However, the developmental course and underlying mechanism (bottom-up stimulus driven or top-down belief driven) associated with the angry-male bias remain unclear. Here we report that anger biases face gender categorization towards male responding in children as young as 5-6 years. The bias is observed for both own- and other-race faces, and is remarkably unchanged across development (into adulthood) as revealed by signal detection analyses (Experiments 1-2). The developmental course of the angry-male bias, along with its extension to other-race faces, combine to suggest that it is not rooted in extensive experience, e.g. observing males engaging in aggressive acts during the school years. Based on several computational simulations of gender categorization (Experiment 3), we further conclude that (1) the angry-male bias results, at least partially, from a strategy of attending to facial features or their second-order relations when categorizing face gender, and (2) any single choice of computational representation (e.g., Principal Component Analysis) is insufficient to assess resemblances between face categories, as different representations of the very same faces suggest different bases for the angry-male bias. Our findings are thus consistent with stimulus-and stereotyped-belief driven accounts of the angry-male bias. Taken together, the evidence suggests considerable stability in the interaction between some facial dimensions in social categorization that is present prior to the onset of formal schooling. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-14T00:01:55Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4c5dbedd8ef14537bb59a492e2d280e5 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-14T00:01:55Z |
| publishDate | 2015-03-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-4c5dbedd8ef14537bb59a492e2d280e52022-12-22T02:23:40ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782015-03-01610.3389/fpsyg.2015.00346137030Angry facial expressions bias gender categorization in children and adults: behavioral and computational evidenceLaurie eBayet0Laurie eBayet1Olivier ePascalis2Olivier ePascalis3Paul C. Quinn4Kang eLee5Edouard eGentaz6Edouard eGentaz7Edouard eGentaz8James W. Tanaka9University of Grenoble-AlpsCNRSUniversity of Grenoble-AlpsCNRSUniversity of DelawareUniversity of TorontoUniversity of Grenoble-AlpsCNRSUniversity of GenevaUniversity of VictoriaAngry faces are perceived as more masculine by adults. However, the developmental course and underlying mechanism (bottom-up stimulus driven or top-down belief driven) associated with the angry-male bias remain unclear. Here we report that anger biases face gender categorization towards male responding in children as young as 5-6 years. The bias is observed for both own- and other-race faces, and is remarkably unchanged across development (into adulthood) as revealed by signal detection analyses (Experiments 1-2). The developmental course of the angry-male bias, along with its extension to other-race faces, combine to suggest that it is not rooted in extensive experience, e.g. observing males engaging in aggressive acts during the school years. Based on several computational simulations of gender categorization (Experiment 3), we further conclude that (1) the angry-male bias results, at least partially, from a strategy of attending to facial features or their second-order relations when categorizing face gender, and (2) any single choice of computational representation (e.g., Principal Component Analysis) is insufficient to assess resemblances between face categories, as different representations of the very same faces suggest different bases for the angry-male bias. Our findings are thus consistent with stimulus-and stereotyped-belief driven accounts of the angry-male bias. Taken together, the evidence suggests considerable stability in the interaction between some facial dimensions in social categorization that is present prior to the onset of formal schooling.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00346/fullFaceemotiongenderrepresentationChildrenstereotype |
| spellingShingle | Laurie eBayet Laurie eBayet Olivier ePascalis Olivier ePascalis Paul C. Quinn Kang eLee Edouard eGentaz Edouard eGentaz Edouard eGentaz James W. Tanaka Angry facial expressions bias gender categorization in children and adults: behavioral and computational evidence Frontiers in Psychology Face emotion gender representation Children stereotype |
| title | Angry facial expressions bias gender categorization in children and adults: behavioral and computational evidence |
| title_full | Angry facial expressions bias gender categorization in children and adults: behavioral and computational evidence |
| title_fullStr | Angry facial expressions bias gender categorization in children and adults: behavioral and computational evidence |
| title_full_unstemmed | Angry facial expressions bias gender categorization in children and adults: behavioral and computational evidence |
| title_short | Angry facial expressions bias gender categorization in children and adults: behavioral and computational evidence |
| title_sort | angry facial expressions bias gender categorization in children and adults behavioral and computational evidence |
| topic | Face emotion gender representation Children stereotype |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00346/full |
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