The roles of featural and configural face processing in snap judgments of sexual orientation

Research has shown that people are able to judge sexual orientation from faces with above-chance accuracy, but little is known about how these judgments are formed. Here, we investigated the importance of well-established face processing mechanisms in such judgments: featural processing (e.g., an ey...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2012-05, Vol.7 (5), p.e36671-e36671
Main Authors: Tabak, Joshua A, Zayas, Vivian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Adolescent
Archives & records
Bias
Biology
Brain research
Defamation
Eye
Face
Female
Females
Gays & lesbians
Gender differences
Humans
Information processing
Judgment
Judgments
Male
Males
Mouth
Orientation
Pattern recognition
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Psychology of learning
Sexual behavior
Sexual orientation
Sexuality
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Social psychology
Young Adult
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Summary:Research has shown that people are able to judge sexual orientation from faces with above-chance accuracy, but little is known about how these judgments are formed. Here, we investigated the importance of well-established face processing mechanisms in such judgments: featural processing (e.g., an eye) and configural processing (e.g., spatial distance between eyes). Participants judged sexual orientation from faces presented for 50 milliseconds either upright, which recruits both configural and featural processing, or upside-down, when configural processing is strongly impaired and featural processing remains relatively intact. Although participants judged women's and men's sexual orientation with above-chance accuracy for upright faces and for upside-down faces, accuracy for upside-down faces was significantly reduced. The reduced judgment accuracy for upside-down faces indicates that configural face processing significantly contributes to accurate snap judgments of sexual orientation.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0036671