Alan B. Milne

The dissection of selection in person perception: inhibitory processes in social stereotyping.

Although people simultaneously belong to multiple social categories, any one of these competing representations can dominate the categorization process. It is surprising therefore to learn that only a few studies have considered the question of how people are categorized when multiple categorizations are available. In addition, relatively little is known about the cognitive mechanisms through which these categorization effects are realized. In the reported research, we attempted to extend recent ideas from work on selective attention to shed some light on these fundamental issues in social perception. Our basic contention was that following the initial identification of a persons applicable categories, the categorization process is driven by the interplay of both excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms. The results of 3 studies supported this contention. We discuss our findings in the wider context of contemporary issues in social stereotyping.

Are you looking at me? Eye gaze and person perception.

Previous research has highlighted the pivotal role played by gaze detection and interpretation in the development of social cognition. Extending work of this kind, the present research investigated the effects of eye gaze on basic aspects of the person-perception process, namely, person construal and the extraction of category-related knowledge from semantic memory. It was anticipated that gaze direction would moderate the efficiency of the mental operations through which these social-cognitive products are generated. Specifically, eye gaze was expected to influence both the speed with which targets could be categorized as men and women and the rate at which associated stereotypic material could be accessed from semantic memory. The results of two experiments supported these predictions: Targets with nondeviated (i.e., direct) eye gaze elicited facilitated categorical responses. The implications of these findings for recent treatments of person perception are considered.

Decomposing Global Self-Esteem

We argue in this paper for distinguishing two dimensions of global self-esteem, self-competence and self-liking. Studies 1 and 2 identify a corresponding pair of factors in Rosenbergs (1965) Self-Esteem Scale. Studies 3 and 4 examine the predictive value of the two-dimensional approach to self-esteem as reflected in the unique associations of self-competence and self-liking with negative life events and word recognition.

Saying no to unwanted thoughts: self-focus and the regulation of mental life.

Drawing from models of mental control and cognitive self-regulation, it was hypothesized that heightened self-focus would promote the spontaneous suppression of social stereotypes. Participants who were induced to experience heightened self-focus indeed produced less stereotypic descriptions of social targets (Studies 1-4). Study 5 further demonstrated that self-focus produced reductions in stereotyping only among those participants whose personal standards dictated stereotype avoidance. A final study demonstrated that these spontaneous forms of stereotype suppression can produce a rebound effect, in which the magnitude of stereotyping increases markedly after a period of suppression. These findings are considered in the context of contemporary issues in mental control and social stereotyping.

Age, anger regulation and well-being

Emotion regulation has been argued to be an important factor in well-being. The current study investigated the effects of adult aging on emotional expression, emotional control and rumination about emotional events, focusing on an emotion which is particularly important in social interaction: anger. Measures of anger regulation and well-being were obtained in a sample of 286 adults aged between 18 and 88. Older adults expressed anger outwardly less often, and reported more inner control of anger using calming strategies compared to their younger counterparts. These age differences were not explained by variance in social desirability of responding. Age improvements in negative affect and anxiety were partly explained by age differences in anger regulation suggesting an important role for anger management in good mental health amongst older adults. Further, age improvements in quality of life were explained by variance in anger regulation indicating that improved management of emotions with age is an important factor in maintaining well-being in old age.

Person Perception Across the Menstrual Cycle: Hormonal Influences on Social-Cognitive Functioning

Womens reactions to men shift during the menstrual cycle. For example, during the phase of high conception risk, women prefer men with masculinized facial features. A favored explanation for this effect is that women display an enhanced sensitivity to stimuli that have significant reproductive relevance during the phase of the menstrual cycle in which conception risk is high. Consistent with this viewpoint, the present research demonstrated that womens cycle-dependent attentiveness to “maleness” also extends to basic aspects of the person-perception process. Specifically, during the phase of high conception risk, women displayed an enhanced ability both to categorize men and to access associated category-related (i.e., stereotypic) material from semantic memory. The implications of these findings for contemporary treatments of person perception are considered.

Using Virtual Environments in the Assessment of Executive Dysfunction

A study is reported into the role of virtual environments in the assessment of patients with executive dysfunction. Five patients and five matched controls entered the study. The patients did not differ significantly from normative values on the standard executive dysfunction measure, the Behavioural Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome battery (Wilson, Alderman, Burgess, Emslie, & Evans, 1996); however, care staff reported the patients had problems planning. Patients and controls undertook both real and virtual environment multiple-errand planning tasks. The patients completed significantly fewer errands, and produced significantly worse plans than did controls in both the real and virtual environments. There was a significant correlation between performance in the real and virtual environments. The results suggest that virtual environments may provide a valid means of assessing planning impairments and that there may be patients with executive dysfunction (specifically planning deficits) that may not be detected by the currently available standardized tests.

Retrieval Cue Specificity and the Realization of Delayed Intentions

Successful performance of a delayed intention relies, in part, on recognition that a cue provides a signal for the retrieval and realization of that intention. The relative ease with which cues are recognized should influence the likelihood of successfully acting upon a delayed intention (cf. Einstein & McDaniel, 1990). We report three studies in which we manipulated ease of recognition by providing, at encoding, either the particular cues (category exemplars) that subsequently appeared during the test phase or the name of the category from which these cues were drawn—specific or general encoding instructions, respectively. Recognition of cues at test, and thus delayed intention performance, should be enhanced by the provision of specific rather than general instructions at encoding—the “specificity effect” identified by Einstein, McDaniel, Richardson, Guynn, and Cunfer (1995). This contrast, however, is likely to be influenced by both category-exemplar and exemplar-exemplar relations. The experiments reported here explored the influence of these relations on delayed intention performance. The results indicate the importance of the semantic relations (a) among cues and (b) between cues and the category from which they are drawn in determining the superiority of specific over general cue instructions.

Is global motion really based on spatial integration of local motion signals

Previous studies have shown that a random-dot kinematogram (RDK) comprising dots, each of which takes a random walk in direction or speed over time, can appear to flow in a single direction. This has been interpreted as evidence for the existence of a co-operative network linking neurons sensitive to different directions/speeds and different spatial locations. We have investigated the possibility that global motion perception in such patterns might simply reflect motion energy detection at a coarse spatial scale (such that many dots fall in the receptive field of one energy detector) without the need to encode local dot motions on a fine spatial scale and then integrate their motions over space. We created random-walk RDKs and then spatially high-pass filtered them to remove low spatial frequencies. Perception of global motion was unimpaired for both direction and speed random walks, showing that the phenomenon is not reliant on low spatial frequencies and must, therefore, involve integration of local motion signals across space, as originally postulated.

Multiple-target tracking: A role for working memory?

In order to identify the cognitive processes associated with target tracking, a dual-task experiment was carried out in which participants undertook a dynamic multiple-object tracking task first alone and then again, concurrently with one of several secondary tasks, in order to investigate the cognitive processes involved. The research suggests that after designated targets within the visual field have attracted preattentive indexes that point to their locations in space, conscious processes, vulnerable to secondary visual and spatial task interference, form deliberate strategies beneficial to the tracking task, before tracking commences. Target tracking itself is realized by central executive processes, which are sensitive to any other cognitive demands. The findings are discussed in the context of integrating dynamic spatial cognition within a working memory framework.