Perception of an ambiguous figure is affected by own-age social biases

Michael Nicholls; Owen Churches; Tobias Loetscher

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-31129-7

Perception of an ambiguous figure is affected by own-age social biases

Michael Nicholls, Owen Churches, Tobias Loetscher

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

Although the perception of faces depends on low-level neuronal processes, it is also affected by high-level social processes. Faces from a social in-group, such as people of a similar age, receive more in-depth processing and are processed holistically. To explore whether own-age biases affect subconscious face perception, we presented participants with the young/old lady ambiguous figure. Mechanical Turk was used to sample participants of varying ages from the USA. Results demonstrated that younger and older participants estimated the age of the image as younger and older, respectively. This own-age effect ties in with socio-cultural practices, which are less inclusive towards the elderly. Participants were not aware the study was related to ageing and the stimulus was shown briefly. The results therefore demonstrate that high-level social group processes have a subconscious effect on the early stages of face processing. A neural feedback model is used to explain this interaction.

Original language	English
Article number	12661
Pages (from-to)	1-5
Number of pages	5
Journal	Scientific Reports
Volume	8
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-31129-7
Publication status	Published - 23 Aug 2018

Bibliographical note

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Keywords

face recognition
identity
social bias

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Published versionFinal published version, 0.99 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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abstract = "Although the perception of faces depends on low-level neuronal processes, it is also affected by high-level social processes. Faces from a social in-group, such as people of a similar age, receive more in-depth processing and are processed holistically. To explore whether own-age biases affect subconscious face perception, we presented participants with the young/old lady ambiguous figure. Mechanical Turk was used to sample participants of varying ages from the USA. Results demonstrated that younger and older participants estimated the age of the image as younger and older, respectively. This own-age effect ties in with socio-cultural practices, which are less inclusive towards the elderly. Participants were not aware the study was related to ageing and the stimulus was shown briefly. The results therefore demonstrate that high-level social group processes have a subconscious effect on the early stages of face processing. A neural feedback model is used to explain this interaction.",

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Perception of an ambiguous figure is affected by own-age social biases

Abstract

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