We investigated whether emotional information facilitates retrieval and whether it makes represen... more We investigated whether emotional information facilitates retrieval and whether it makes representations more salient during sentence processing. Participants were presented with sentences including entities (nouns) that were either bare, with no additional information or that were emotionally or neutrally qualified by means of adjectives. Reading times in different word regions, specifically at the region following the verb where retrieval processes are measurable, were analysed. Qualified representations needed longer time to be build up than bare representations. Also, it was found that the amount of information and the type of information affect sentences processing and more specifically retrieval. In particular, retrieval for emotionally specified representations was faster than that for bare representations.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Aug 14, 2023
This article investigates the use of performance-related feedback as a strategy for overcoming sp... more This article investigates the use of performance-related feedback as a strategy for overcoming spontaneous occupational stereotyping when certain social role nouns and professional terms are read. Across two studies participants were presented with two terms: a role noun (e.g., surgeon) and a kinship term (e.g., mother) and asked to quickly decide whether both terms could refer to the same person. The feedback training involved telling participants whether their responses were correct or incorrect and providing them with their cumulative percentage correct score. In the absence of feedback, responding to stereotype-incongruent pairings was typically slower and less accurate than in stereotype-congruent and neutral conditions. However, the results demonstrated that performance significantly improved to stimuli on which participants received the feedback training (Experiment 1), and to a novel set of stimuli (Experiment 2). In addition, the effects were still evident 1 week later (Experiment 2). It is concluded that performance-related feedback is a valuable strategy for overcoming spontaneous activation of occupational stereotypes and can result in lower levels of stereotype use.
We investigated whether emotional information facilitates retrieval and whether it makes represen... more We investigated whether emotional information facilitates retrieval and whether it makes representations more salient during sentence processing. Participants were presented with sentences including entities (nouns) that were either bare, with no additional information or that were emotionally or neutrally qualified by means of adjectives. Reading times in different word regions, specifically at the region following the verb where retrieval processes are measurable, were analysed. Qualified representations needed longer time to be build up than bare representations. Also, it was found that the amount of information and the type of information affect sentences processing and more specifically retrieval. In particular, retrieval for emotionally specified representations was faster than that for bare representations.
The adult voice is a strong bio-social marker for masculinity and femininity. In this study we in... more The adult voice is a strong bio-social marker for masculinity and femininity. In this study we investigated whether children make gender stereotypical judgments about adults' occupational competence on the basis of their voice. Forty-eight 8-to 10-year olds were asked to rate the competence of adult voices that varied in vocal masculinity (by artificially manipulating voice pitch) and were randomly paired with 9 occupations (3 stereotypically male, 3 female, 3 gender-neutral). In line with gender stereotypes, children rated men as more competent for the male occupations and women as more competent for the female occupations. Moreover, children rated speakers of both sexes with feminine (high-pitched) voices as more competent for the female occupations. Finally, children rated men (but not women) with masculine (low-pitched) voices as more competent for stereotypically male occupations. Our results thus indicate that stereotypical voice-based judgments of occupational competence previously identified in adults are already present in children, and likely to affect how they consider adults and interact with them in their social environment.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Feb 27, 2020
Article (Accepted Version) http://sro.sussex.ac.uk Child, Scarlett, Oakhill, Jane and Garnham, Al... more Article (Accepted Version) http://sro.sussex.ac.uk Child, Scarlett, Oakhill, Jane and Garnham, Alan (2020) Tracking your emotions-an eyetracking study on reader's engagement with perspective during text comprehension. Quarterly
... In W. Kessen, ed., Handbook of Child Psy-chology, vol ... Figure 16.4: From RS Siegler, Child... more ... In W. Kessen, ed., Handbook of Child Psy-chology, vol ... Figure 16.4: From RS Siegler, Children'sThinking, 2nd edn (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991 ... Our capacity for reasoning and other complex thought processes appears to set us off from other animals, and, partly for ...
Pre-pubertal boys and girls speak with acoustically different voices despite the absence of a cle... more Pre-pubertal boys and girls speak with acoustically different voices despite the absence of a clear anatomical dimorphism in the vocal apparatus, suggesting that a strong component of the expression of gender through the voice is behavioural. Initial evidence for this hypothesis was found in a previous study showing that children can alter their voice to sound like a boy or like a girl. However, whether they can spontaneously modulate these voice components within their own gender in order to vary the expression of their masculinity and femininity remained to be investigated. Here, seventy-two English-speaking children aged 6–10 were asked to give voice to child characters varying in masculine and feminine stereotypicality to investigate whether primary school children spontaneously adjust their sex-related cues in the voice—fundamental frequency (F0) and formant spacing (ΔF)—along gender stereotypical lines. Boys and girls masculinized their voice, by loweringF0 and ΔF, when impers...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2021
Existing evidence suggests that children from around the age of 8 years strategically alter their... more Existing evidence suggests that children from around the age of 8 years strategically alter their public image in accordance with known values and preferences of peers, through the self-descriptive information they convey. However, an important but neglected aspect of this ‘self-presentation’ is the medium through which such information is communicated: the voice itself. The present study explored peer audience effects on children's vocal productions. Fifty-six children (26 females, aged 8–10 years) were presented with vignettes where a fictional child, matched to the participant's age and sex, is trying to make friends with a group of same-sex peers with stereotypically masculine or feminine interests (rugby and ballet, respectively). Participants were asked to impersonate the child in that situation and, as the child, to read out loud masculine, feminine and gender-neutral self-descriptive statements to these hypothetical audiences. They also had to decide which of those s...
We investigated whether emotional information facilitates retrieval and whether it makes represen... more We investigated whether emotional information facilitates retrieval and whether it makes representations more salient during sentence processing. Participants were presented with sentences including entities (nouns) that were either bare, with no additional information or that were emotionally or neutrally qualified by means of adjectives. Reading times in different word regions, specifically at the region following the verb where retrieval processes are measurable, were analysed. Qualified representations needed longer time to be build up than bare representations. Also, it was found that the amount of information and the type of information affect sentences processing and more specifically retrieval. In particular, retrieval for emotionally specified representations was faster than that for bare representations.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Aug 14, 2023
This article investigates the use of performance-related feedback as a strategy for overcoming sp... more This article investigates the use of performance-related feedback as a strategy for overcoming spontaneous occupational stereotyping when certain social role nouns and professional terms are read. Across two studies participants were presented with two terms: a role noun (e.g., surgeon) and a kinship term (e.g., mother) and asked to quickly decide whether both terms could refer to the same person. The feedback training involved telling participants whether their responses were correct or incorrect and providing them with their cumulative percentage correct score. In the absence of feedback, responding to stereotype-incongruent pairings was typically slower and less accurate than in stereotype-congruent and neutral conditions. However, the results demonstrated that performance significantly improved to stimuli on which participants received the feedback training (Experiment 1), and to a novel set of stimuli (Experiment 2). In addition, the effects were still evident 1 week later (Experiment 2). It is concluded that performance-related feedback is a valuable strategy for overcoming spontaneous activation of occupational stereotypes and can result in lower levels of stereotype use.
We investigated whether emotional information facilitates retrieval and whether it makes represen... more We investigated whether emotional information facilitates retrieval and whether it makes representations more salient during sentence processing. Participants were presented with sentences including entities (nouns) that were either bare, with no additional information or that were emotionally or neutrally qualified by means of adjectives. Reading times in different word regions, specifically at the region following the verb where retrieval processes are measurable, were analysed. Qualified representations needed longer time to be build up than bare representations. Also, it was found that the amount of information and the type of information affect sentences processing and more specifically retrieval. In particular, retrieval for emotionally specified representations was faster than that for bare representations.
The adult voice is a strong bio-social marker for masculinity and femininity. In this study we in... more The adult voice is a strong bio-social marker for masculinity and femininity. In this study we investigated whether children make gender stereotypical judgments about adults' occupational competence on the basis of their voice. Forty-eight 8-to 10-year olds were asked to rate the competence of adult voices that varied in vocal masculinity (by artificially manipulating voice pitch) and were randomly paired with 9 occupations (3 stereotypically male, 3 female, 3 gender-neutral). In line with gender stereotypes, children rated men as more competent for the male occupations and women as more competent for the female occupations. Moreover, children rated speakers of both sexes with feminine (high-pitched) voices as more competent for the female occupations. Finally, children rated men (but not women) with masculine (low-pitched) voices as more competent for stereotypically male occupations. Our results thus indicate that stereotypical voice-based judgments of occupational competence previously identified in adults are already present in children, and likely to affect how they consider adults and interact with them in their social environment.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Feb 27, 2020
Article (Accepted Version) http://sro.sussex.ac.uk Child, Scarlett, Oakhill, Jane and Garnham, Al... more Article (Accepted Version) http://sro.sussex.ac.uk Child, Scarlett, Oakhill, Jane and Garnham, Alan (2020) Tracking your emotions-an eyetracking study on reader's engagement with perspective during text comprehension. Quarterly
... In W. Kessen, ed., Handbook of Child Psy-chology, vol ... Figure 16.4: From RS Siegler, Child... more ... In W. Kessen, ed., Handbook of Child Psy-chology, vol ... Figure 16.4: From RS Siegler, Children'sThinking, 2nd edn (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991 ... Our capacity for reasoning and other complex thought processes appears to set us off from other animals, and, partly for ...
Pre-pubertal boys and girls speak with acoustically different voices despite the absence of a cle... more Pre-pubertal boys and girls speak with acoustically different voices despite the absence of a clear anatomical dimorphism in the vocal apparatus, suggesting that a strong component of the expression of gender through the voice is behavioural. Initial evidence for this hypothesis was found in a previous study showing that children can alter their voice to sound like a boy or like a girl. However, whether they can spontaneously modulate these voice components within their own gender in order to vary the expression of their masculinity and femininity remained to be investigated. Here, seventy-two English-speaking children aged 6–10 were asked to give voice to child characters varying in masculine and feminine stereotypicality to investigate whether primary school children spontaneously adjust their sex-related cues in the voice—fundamental frequency (F0) and formant spacing (ΔF)—along gender stereotypical lines. Boys and girls masculinized their voice, by loweringF0 and ΔF, when impers...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2021
Existing evidence suggests that children from around the age of 8 years strategically alter their... more Existing evidence suggests that children from around the age of 8 years strategically alter their public image in accordance with known values and preferences of peers, through the self-descriptive information they convey. However, an important but neglected aspect of this ‘self-presentation’ is the medium through which such information is communicated: the voice itself. The present study explored peer audience effects on children's vocal productions. Fifty-six children (26 females, aged 8–10 years) were presented with vignettes where a fictional child, matched to the participant's age and sex, is trying to make friends with a group of same-sex peers with stereotypically masculine or feminine interests (rugby and ballet, respectively). Participants were asked to impersonate the child in that situation and, as the child, to read out loud masculine, feminine and gender-neutral self-descriptive statements to these hypothetical audiences. They also had to decide which of those s...
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