Effects of the observed gaze on gender priming

Event-related potential study

Abstract

To examine the effects of observed gaze on gender priming, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during performance of a gender matching task, in which face (prime) and word (target) pairs were sequentially presented. Twelve right-handed participants were required to make a judgment whether or not a gender of gazed or averted face is compatible with gender stereotype of a target word. An early negative component prior to the target was invariant between a gazed face and an averted face conditions. In the gazed face condition, an N400 attenuation was observed for a target word related to a face in terms of a gender stereotype. On the contrary, such a gender priming effect did not appear in the averted face condition. These findings suggest that semantic knowledge of gender stereotype is activated when the observed face gazes at the viewer.