Cognitive processing differences between stereotype activation and semantic activation

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated that the activation of stereotype conflict is similar to the N400 congruency effect shown by the activation of semantic violation. In order to distinguish the differences between the two, the first experiment used gender stereotype trait words as target stimuli, and used “male/female” and “synonym of trait words/antonym of trait words” as priming stimuli respectively, so that the subjects completed the consistency determination task. In experiment 2, gender stereotyped behavior pictures were used as target stimuli, and “male/female” was used as priming stimuli, so that the subjects completed the task of consistency determination. The results showed that both gender stereotype conflict and semantic violation could induce N400 a congruency effect. Importantly, the N400 amplitude and response latency induced by gender stereotype activation are both smaller than those induced by semantic activation. These results show that stereotype activation is distinct from semantic activation, further demonstrating that the brain preferentially processes information related to gender stereotypes, and gender stereotype cognitive processing is more likely to happen than semantic knowledge processing.