Context and Perceptual Salience Influence the Formation of Novel Stereotypes via Cumulative Cultural Evolution.

ABSTRACT: We use a transmission chain method to establish how context and category salience influence the formation of novel stereotypes through cumulative cultural evolution. We created novel alien targets by combining features from three category dimensions-color, movement, and shape-thereby creating social targets that were individually unique but that also shared category membership with other aliens (e.g., two aliens might be the same color and shape but move differently). At the start of the transmission chains each alien was randomly assigned attributes that described it (e.g., arrogant, caring, confident). Participants were given training on the alien-attribute assignments and were then tested on their memory for these. The alien-attribute assignments participants produced during test were u

SUBMITTER: Hutchison J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5969227 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature