Uncovering gender discrimination cues in a realistic setting.
Which face cues do we use for gender discrimination? Few studies have tried to answer this question and the few that have tried typically used only a small set of grayscale stimuli, often distorted and presented a large number of times. Here, we reassessed the importance of facial cues for gender discrimination in a more realistic setting. We applied Bubbles-a technique that minimizes bias toward specific facial features and does not necessitate the distortion of stimuli-to a set of 300 color photographs of Caucasian faces, each presented only once to 30 participants. Results show that the region of the eyes and the eyebrows-probably in the light-dark channel-is the most important facial cue for accurate gender discrimination; and that the mouth region is driving fast correct responses (but not fast incorrect responses)-the gender discrimination information in the mouth region is concentrated in the red-green color channel. Together, these results suggest that, when color is informative in the mouth region, humans use it and respond rapidly; and, when it's not informative, they have to rely on the more robust but more sluggish luminance information in the eye-eyebrow region.
Dupuis-Roy
Nicolas
N
Département de Psychologie, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada. nicolas.dupuis.roy@umontreal.ca
Fortin
Isabelle
I
Fiset
Daniel
D
Gosselin
Frédéric
F
D000328:Adult; D003116:Color; D003463:Cues; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005123:Eye; D005138:Eyebrows; D006801:Humans; D008027:Light; D009055:Mouth; D011601:Psychophysics; D012723:Sex; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult