Ambiguity and the Timecourse of Racial Perception |
Ambiguity and the Timecourse of Racial Perception
Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic
Volume 24, Number 5 (October 2006)
pages 580-606
DOI: 10.1521/soco.2006.24.5.580
Eve C. Willadsen-Jensen
University of Colorado, Boulder
Tiffany A. Ito, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
University of Colorado, Boulder
Two studies examined early perceptual processing and explicit racial categorization of racially ambiguous faces. Participants viewed racially ambiguous faces as well as faces of Whites, Asians, and Blacks while event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Initial perceptual processes, indexed by ERP components occurring within 200 ms [milliseconds] of stimulus onset, showed that racially ambiguous faces were differentiated from Asian and Black but not White faces. Later in processing, around 500 ms after stimulus onset, racially ambiguous faces were differentiated from White faces. However, the racially ambiguous faces were still perceived more similarly to Whites than to Asians or Blacks. Finally, explicit social categorization reflected the ambiguity of the faces. These results highlight the complex nature of racial perception, and the importance of understanding how the growing population of multiracial individuals is perceived.
Read or purchase the article here.
Tags: Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, Eve C. Willadsen-Jensen, Eve Willadsen-Jensen, Tiffany A. Ito, Tiffany Ito