Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The face-specific proportion congruency effect: social stimuli as contextual cues

  • Short Communication
  • Published:
Cognitive Processing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Previous research shows that larger interference is observed in contexts associated with a high proportion of congruent trials than in those associated with a low proportion of congruent trials. Given that one of the most relevant contexts for human beings is social context, researchers have recently explored the possibility that social stimuli could also work as contextual cues for the allocation of attentional control. In fact, it has been shown that individuals use social categories (i.e., men and women) as cues to allocate attentional control. In this work, we go further by showing that individual faces (instead of the social categories they belong to) associated with a high proportion of congruent trials can also lead to larger interference effects compared to individual faces predicting a relatively low proportion of congruent trials. Furthermore, we show that faces associated with a high proportion of congruent trials are more positively evaluated than faces associated with a high proportion of incongruent trials. These results demonstrate that unique human faces are potential contextual cues than can be employed to apply cognitive control when performing an automatic task.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Notes

  1. We follow the design described in order to obtain a comparable pattern of results with previous research (Cañadas et al. 2013). However, an alternative design was also tested showing similar conclusions. Specifically, we ran an ANOVA 2 Group congruency (High vs. Low proportion of congruency associated with each category) × 2 Individual Congruency (High vs. Low proportion of congruency associated with each face) × 2 Trial congruency (Congruent vs. Incongruent) × 2 Instructions (Categorization vs. Individualization). Results showed that participants were faster on congruent trials (vs. incongruent, F (1, 38) = 10.45, p < .01; M = 767, SE = 11 vs. M = 777, SE = 11 ms, respectively) and on faces associated mainly to congruent than incongruent displays, although this was a just a tendency (F (1, 38) = 3.67, p = .06; M = 769, SE = 11 vs. M = 776; SE = 11.03 ms). The analysis also showed as significant the Individual congruency x Trial congruency interaction, F (1, 38) = 6.86, p = .01, indicating that the proportion of congruency individually associated to each face modulated the congruency effect. When responding to highly congruent faces, participants were faster in congruent than incongruent trials (M = 760, SE = 10 vs. M = 778; SE = 13 ms). However, this effect almost disappeared and was not significant when responding in the context of a face individually associated to a low proportion congruency (M = 775, SE = 11 vs. M = 776; SE = 10 ms). This effect was not modulated by group proportion congruency or the instructions received (Fs < 1).

References

  • Blair IV, Banaji MR (1996) Automatic and controlled processes in stereotype priming. J Pers Soc Psychol 70:1142–1163

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brewer MB (1988) A dual process model of impression formation. In: Wyer RS Jr, Srull TK (eds) Advances in social cognition, vol 1. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, pp 1–36

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruce V, Young AW (1986) Understanding face recognition. Br J Psychol 77:305–327

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bugg JM, Jacoby LL, Chanani S (2011) Why it is too early to lose control in accounts of item-specific proportion congruency effects. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 37:844–859

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cañadas E, Lupiáñez J, Rodríguez-Bailón R (2009) I like you more if you look where I should: gaze cueing and implicit prejudice change. Unpublished master’s thesis, Universidad de Granada, Spain

  • Cañadas E, Rodríguez-Bailón R, Milliken B, Lupiáñez J (2013) Social categories as a context for the allocation of attentional control. J Exp Psychol 142(3):934–943

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cañadas E, Lupiáñez J, Kawakami K, Niedenthal PM, Rodríguez-Bailón R (2016) Perceiving emotions: cueing social categorization processes and attentional control through facial expressions. Cognit Emot 30(6):1149–1163

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cloutier J, Mason MF, Macrae CN (2005) The perceptual determinants of person construal: reopening the social-cognitive toolbox. J Pers Soc Psychol 88:885–894

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cousineau D (2005) Confidence intervals in within-subject designs: a simpler solution to Loftus and Masson’s method. Tutor Quant Methods Psychol 1(1):42–45

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crump MJ, Milliken B (2009) The flexibility of context-specific control: evidence for context-driven generalization of item-specific control setting. Q J Exp Psychol 62:1523–1532

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crump MJ, Gong Z, Milliken B (2006) The context-specific proportion congruent Stroop effect: location as a contextual cue. Psychon Bull Rev 13:316–321

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Crump MJ, Vaquero JMM, Milliken B (2008) Context-specific learning and control: the roles of awareness, task relevance and relative salience. Conscious Cogn 17:22–36

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Fiske ST, Neuberg SL (1990) A continuum model of impression formation from category-based to individuating processes: influences of information and motivation on attention and interpretation. Adv Exp Soc Psychol 23:1–74

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hugenberg K, Young S, Bernstein M, Sacco DF (2010) The categorization-individuation model: an integrative account of the cross race recognition deficit. Psychol Rev 117:1168–1187

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Jacoby LL, Lindsay DS, Hessels S (2003) Item-specific control of automatic processes: stroop process dissociations. Psychon Bull Rev 10:638–644

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lepore L, Brown R (1997) Category and stereotype activation: is prejudice inevitable? J Pers Soc Psychol 72:275–287

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Locke V, MacLeod C, Walker I (1994) Automatic and controlled activation of stereotypes: individual differences associated with prejudice. Br J Soc Psychol 33:29–46

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Logan GD, Zbrodoff NJ (1979) When it helps to be misled: facilitative effects of increasing the frequency of conflicting stimuli in a Stroop-like task. Mem Cognit 7(3):166–174

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lowe DG, Mitterer JO (1982) Selective and divided attention in a Stroop task. Can J Psychol 36:684–700

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mac Arthur Foundation Research Network on Early Experience and Brain Development (n.d.) NimStim face stimulus set [Data set]. Retrieved from http://www.macbrain.org/resources.htm

  • Macrae CN, Bodenhausen GV (2001) Social cognition: categorical person perception. Br J Psychol 92:239–255

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Macrae CN, Bodenhausen GV, Milne AB, Thorn TMJ, Castelli L (1997) On the activation of social stereotypes: the moderating role of processing objectives. J Exp Soc Psychol 33:471–489

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tarr MJ, Gauthier I (2000) FFA: a flexible fusiform area for subordinate-level visual processing automatized by expertise. Nat Neurosci 3:764–769

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Telga M, de Lemus S, Cañadas E, Rodríguez-Bailón R, Lupiáñez J (2018) Category-based learning about deviant outgroup members hinders performance in trust decision making. Manuscript under review

  • West R, Baylis GC (1998) Effects of increased response dominance and contextual disintegration on the Stroop interference effect in older adults. Psychol Aging 13:206–217

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wittenbrink B, Judd CM, Park B (1997) Evidence for racial prejudice at the implicit level and its relationship with questionnaire measures. J Pers Soc Psychol 72:262–274

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Escuela de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Av. Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Macul, Santiago, Chile

    Gloria Jiménez-Moya

  2. Departamento de Psicología Social, Universidad de Granada, Campus Cartuja, 18071, Granada, Spain

    Gloria Jiménez-Moya, Rosa Rodríguez-Bailón & Juan Lupiáñez

  3. Departamento de Psicología Experimental, Universidad de Granada, Campus Cartuja, 18071, Granada, Spain

    Rosa Rodríguez-Bailón & Juan Lupiáñez

Authors
  1. Gloria Jiménez-Moya
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Rosa Rodríguez-Bailón
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Juan Lupiáñez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gloria Jiménez-Moya.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declared that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This study was conformed to the relevant regulatory standards approved by the local ethics committee of the University of Granada in the Department of Experimental Psychology.

Informed consent

The informed consent was verbally obtained from all participants included in the study. All participants were explained about the main aim of the experiment and they were informed that they could leave the experiment at any time and no reason was needed to do it. They were told that their participation was totally anonymous and that no personal information (name, date of birth, etc.) was needed. After the experiment, all participants were verbally debriefed and explained in detail about the hypothesis, the methodology used and the expected results of the experiment.

Additional information

Handling editor: Maria Casagrande (Sapienza University of Rome);

Reviewers: Francesca Federico (Sapienza University of Rome), Andrea Marotta (University of Granada).

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Jiménez-Moya, G., Rodríguez-Bailón, R. & Lupiáñez, J. The face-specific proportion congruency effect: social stimuli as contextual cues. Cogn Process 19, 537–544 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-018-0870-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-018-0870-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation