Categorical Perception and The Formation of Identity Categories

Nunn, Rivers

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

Categorical Perception and The Formation of Identity Categories Public Deposited

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/pk02cc32k

Abstract

Previous scholarly works have documented how either race or exposure may influence categorical perception as identity categories are constructed. There is evidence that categorical perception is much more likely to occur with learned target faces that the perceiver has individuated such as when a face is paired with a name. However, this effect is less likely when the face is novel and has not been individuated from past exposure. Additionally, past work points to categorical perception being more prominent with same-race faces than cross-race faces. Despite past studies independently analyzing exposure or race in relation to categorical perception, these studies have not combined their testing to show how categorical perception may be moderated by race and exposure simultaneously. Thus, this study aimed to fill this gap in the research literature. If the formation of identity categories for same-race faces occurs faster and easier compared to cross-race faces, then the categorical perception effect should occur at lower levels of exposure for same-race faces compared to cross-race faces. This would culminate in a three-way interaction between race, exposure, and categorical perception. It was hypothesized that with increased exposure, the categorical perception effect would become more robust and that this effect would be stronger for same-race faces as compared to cross-race faces. Ultimately, this study finds support for some of its hypotheses. The categorical perception effect was moderated by race with participants being able to tell different images of white faces together as the same individual more often than they were able to tell different images of black faces together as the same individual. This effect was statistically significant. However, exposure did not seem to affect categorical perception for either cross-race or same-race faces resulting in an insignificant finding.

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