Flexing Gender Perception: Brain Potentials Reveal the Cognitive Permeability of Grammatical Information

The influence of gender stereotypical primes on the neural processing of words and faces

Implicit and automatic gender stereotyping and its neural correlates have been extensively investigated in language. This study aimed to extend this investigation to human face processing. We recorded response times (RTs) and Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) to a target third-person singular pronoun (lui 'he' or lei 'she') or face (male, female), preceded by grammatically marked or stereotypically associated words (e.g. laureata 'graduated', badante 'caregiver'). Participants gender-categorized the target pronoun or face. The RTs showed a priming effect for the grammatical condition for pronouns and both grammatical and stereotypical conditions for faces. At the ERP level, feminine pronouns elicited a larger P300 and LPP (limited to men) when preceded by grammatically masculine than feminine primes. Faces elicited a larger N400, P300, and LPP (limited to women for female faces) when preceded by grammatically gender-incongruent than -congruent primes. Critically, faces showed an ERP gender stereotype asymmetry: larger N400 to male faces, and larger P300 to female faces, when preceded by stereotypically gender-incongruent than -congruent primes. This study shows that faces are influenced by gender stereotypes similarly and more strongly than linguistic stimuli. Given the multidimensionality of faces, this study is a gate-opener for future studies on the interplay between different stereotypes.

Effect of Healthy Aging and Gender on Syntactic Input Processing: A P600 Event-Related Potential Study

PURPOSE

This study aimed to investigate the effect of healthy aging and gender, as well as the interaction, thereof, on syntactic input processing during sentence comprehension. This was achieved through the recording of the P600 event-related potential.

METHOD

Sixty Flemish (native speakers of Dutch) participants (30 men and 30 women), equally distributed into three age groups (young, middle-aged, and older adults), were subjected to a visually presented word order violation task under simultaneous electro-encephalography recording. The task contained 60 sentences, of which half were grammatical and half contained a word order violation. P600 responses were analyzed for amplitude, latency, topographical distribution, and source localization.

RESULTS

Regarding the effect of healthy aging, no age-related differences were found for the amplitude, onset latency, and topographical distribution of the P600 effect (difference wave). Although aging effects on the P600 effect amplitude were absent, a reduced P600 amplitude in response to both the grammatical and ungrammatical sentences was found, next to a reduced overall degree of source activation in linguistic regions of interest. Also, a reduced behavioral accuracy in response to the word order violation was observed in the older adults group. Regarding the effect of gender, females exhibited a larger P600 effect amplitude and a reduced behavioral accuracy compared to males. No gender-related differences were found for P600 effect onset latency, topographical distribution, and source activation.

CONCLUSIONS

While this study demonstrates no effect of aging on the P600 effect, the lower behavioral response and absence of any activation shift argues against functional compensation. Moreover, although increased neural activation in women combined with their reduced behavioral accuracy may indicate the use of different cognitive strategies in men and women, source localization analysis could not objectify this hypothesis.

The Effect of Language-Specific Characteristics on English and Japanese Speakers' Ability to Recall Number Information

The current paper presents two experiments investigating the effect of presence versus absence of compulsory number marking in a native language on a speaker's ability to recall number information from photos. In Experiment 1, monolingual English and Japanese adults were shown a sequence of 110 photos after which they were asked questions about the photos. We found that the English participants showed a significantly higher accuracy rate for questions testing recall for number information when the correct answer was "2" (instead of "1") than Japanese participants. In Experiment 2, English and Japanese adults engaged in the same task as in Experiment 1 with an addition that explored reasons for the results found in Experiment 1. The results of Experiment 2 were in line with the results of Experiment 1, but also suggested that the results could not be attributed to differences in guessing patterns between the two groups or the type of linguistic constructions used in the test situations. The current study suggests that native language affects speakers' ability to recall number information from scenes and thus provides evidence for the Whorfian hypothesis.