Dissecting the visual perception of body shape with the Garner selective attention paradigm
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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In: Visual Cognition, Vol. 25, No. 4-6, 07.2017, p. 507-523.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Dissecting the visual perception of body shape with the Garner selective attention paradigm
AU - Johnstone, Leah
AU - Downing, Paul
PY - 2017/7
Y1 - 2017/7
N2 - The visual appearance of bodies provides important social cues - how are they extracted? We studied two socially-relevant dimensions that are revealed in static body shape – sex and weight. Three experiments using the Garner selective-attention paradigm, in the first such application for body stimuli, found that when making sex judgements, body weight was successfully filtered; however, when judging weight, variation in sex could not be ignored. This asymmetric pattern was not due to differences in the perceptual salience of the dimensions. It suggests a parallel-contingent process where sex and weight are processed concurrently, and ongoing analysis of sex influences processing of weight. A priming experiment supported that view: verbal pre-cues to the sex of a body influenced categorisation of its weight, but weight cues did not influence sex categorisation. This architecture reflects relationships between the shape cues to body weight and sex that are present in the social environment.
AB - The visual appearance of bodies provides important social cues - how are they extracted? We studied two socially-relevant dimensions that are revealed in static body shape – sex and weight. Three experiments using the Garner selective-attention paradigm, in the first such application for body stimuli, found that when making sex judgements, body weight was successfully filtered; however, when judging weight, variation in sex could not be ignored. This asymmetric pattern was not due to differences in the perceptual salience of the dimensions. It suggests a parallel-contingent process where sex and weight are processed concurrently, and ongoing analysis of sex influences processing of weight. A priming experiment supported that view: verbal pre-cues to the sex of a body influenced categorisation of its weight, but weight cues did not influence sex categorisation. This architecture reflects relationships between the shape cues to body weight and sex that are present in the social environment.
KW - Body perception
KW - Garner interference
KW - Sex
KW - Body weight
KW - Social Vision
U2 - 10.1080/13506285.2017.1334733
DO - 10.1080/13506285.2017.1334733
M3 - Article
VL - 25
SP - 507
EP - 523
JO - Visual Cognition
JF - Visual Cognition
SN - 1350-6285
IS - 4-6
ER -