Modeling psychological stereotypes in self-organizing maps

Abstract

Cognitive psychology defines stereotypes as categories associating information according to perceived similarity rather than according to logical criteria [1]. Self-organizing maps (SOMs) [2] are used as models of human perception in an experiment on stereotype formation. Two groups of SOMs were trained with coded newspaper information, one with information from a conservative newspaper, the other with information from a progressive one. The SOMs performed well in mapping the major differences between the newspapers (r=0.99). Further, each group generated distinct associations of dissimilar information which could be interpreted as 'artificial stereotypes'. The SOM is suggested as a research tool for cognitive research on stereotype change.