Configural Face Processing and Prejudice Regulation

非人化--否认对他人的完全人性--是虐待他人的关键导火索。当其他人被剥夺人性时，他们往往会受到攻击，遭受歧视，其他人甚至对他们的痛苦视而不见。在目前的研究中，迈阿密大学的Kurt Hugenberg和他的同事们将研究可能导致他人非人化的面部信号。过去的研究表明，人脸通常是以构型加工的。也就是说，不是单独检查脸部的特定特征(眼睛、鼻子)，而是自发地将面孔的特征组合在一起并作为一个整体进行处理。这项工作将调查对人脸执行这种配置处理的失败是否会引发非人性化。这项拟议的研究将1)弥合知觉心理学和社会心理学之间的界限，2)扩大我们对非人性化背后的知觉机制的有限理解，3)回答关于非人化的前因和影响以及面孔加工的可塑性的深层次问题。非人化在群体间的冲突、不公正和歧视中起着关键作用。理解人性判断背后的机制是解决非人性化的原因和后果的必要的下一步。拟议的研究将通过三个研究方向的10个实验来探索归因于人性和配置面孔加工之间的关系。第一项工作可能提供新的证据，表明配置面孔处理是人性的线索，配置处理的面孔使人脸看起来更人性化，配置处理的中断可能会引发去人性化。其次，使用行为和神经科学(ERP)技术，这项工作将调查增加对人类的归属感是否会增加配置面孔加工的程度。第三，当前的研究将寻求将关于配置性面孔加工和去人性化的发现扩展到偏见调节领域。虽然偏见的激活可以简单地从种族典型的面部特征中发生，但控制偏见的动机可能是通过体验一张完全是人类的脸来触发的。因此，这第三条工作将证明，偏见激活和偏见调控是不可分离的，因此前者可以单独由种族典型特征触发，后者通过配置加工触发。这一知识可导致制定新的战略，有效地减少偏见和歧视。

Dehumanization - the denial of full humanness to others - is a key trigger for mistreating other people. When others are dehumanized, they are often subjected to aggression, experience discrimination, and others even become blind to their pain. In the current research, Kurt Hugenberg (Miami University) and colleagues will examine the facial signals that can lead to dehumanization of others. Past research has shown that human faces are normally processed configurally. That is, rather than examining specific features (the eyes, the nose) of the face separately, the features of a face are spontaneously "grouped together" and processed as a whole. This work will investigate whether a failure to perform this configural processing for a face may trigger dehumanization. This proposed research will 1) bridge the boundary between perceptual and social psychology, 2) expand our limited understanding of the perceptual mechanisms underlying dehumanization, and 3) answer deep questions about both the antecedents and effects of dehumanization and the malleability of face processing. Dehumanization plays a key role in intergroup conflict, injustice, and discrimination. Understanding the mechanisms underlying judgments of humanness is a necessary next step to addressing the causes and consequences of dehumanization.The proposed studies will explore the relationships between ascribing humanity and configural face processing in 10 experiments across 3 lines of research. The first line of work may provide novel evidence that configural face processing is a cue for humanity, with configurally processed faces making human faces seem more human, and that disruptions of configural processing may trigger dehumanization. Second, using both behavioral and neuroscience (ERP) techniques, this work will investigate whether increasing ascriptions of humanity can increase the extent of configural face processing. Third, the current research will seek to extend the findings regarding configural face processing and dehumanization to the domain of prejudice regulation. Whereas the activation of prejudice can occur simply from race-typical facial features, the motivation to control prejudice could be triggered by experiencing a face as fully human. Thus, this third line of work will demonstrate that prejudice activation and prejudice regulation are dissociable, such that the former can be triggered by race-typical features alone, and the latter via configural processing. This knowledge could lead to the development of novel strategies to effectively reduce prejudice and discrimination.