Experience-dependent reshaping of body gender perception

1Citations
Citations of this article
24Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

This article is free to access.

Abstract

Protracted exposure to specific stimuli causes biased visual aftereffects at both low- and high-level dimensions of a stimulus. Recently, it has been proposed that alterations of these aftereffects could play a role in body misperceptions. However, since previous studies have mainly addressed manipulations of body size, the relative contribution of low-level retinotopic and/or high-level object-based mechanisms is yet to be understood. In three experiments, we investigated visual aftereffects for body-gender perception, testing for the tuning of visual aftereffects across different characters and orientation. We found that exposure to a distinctively female (or male) body makes androgynous bodies appear as more masculine (or feminine) and that these aftereffects were not specific for the individual characteristics of the adapting body (Exp.1). Furthermore, exposure to only upright bodies (Exp.2) biased the perception of upright, but not of inverted bodies, while exposure to both upright and inverted bodies (Exp.3) biased perception for both. Finally, participants’ sensitivity to body aftereffects was lower in individuals with greater communication deficits and deeper internalization of a male gender role. Overall, our data reveals the orientation-, but not identity-tuning of body-gender aftereffects and points to the association between alterations of the malleability of body gender perception and social deficits.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

D’Argenio, G., Finisguerra, A., & Urgesi, C. (2022). Experience-dependent reshaping of body gender perception. Psychological Research, 86(4), 1184–1202. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-021-01569-4

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free