Bodily cues of sex and emotion can interact symmetrically: Evidence from simple categorization and the garner paradigm.

Abstract

Although much research has investigated how multiple sources of social information derived from faces are processed and integrated, few studies have extended this investigation to bodies. The current study addressed this gap by investigating the nature of the interaction between bodily cues of sex and emotion. Using the Garner paradigm, participants recruited from a university student participant pool categorized the sex or the emotional expression (happy and angry in Experiment 1 [n = 194], angry and sad in Experiment 2 [n = 129]) of bodies across two block types. In orthogonal blocks, participants categorized bodies along one dimension while the second dimension was varied (e.g., categorizing the sex of happy and angry bodies), whereas in control blocks the second dimension was held constant (e.g., categorizing the sex of only happy bodies). Responses were analyzed in two ways. Comparing response times across blocks revealed Garner interference (overall faster categorization in the control than in the orthogonal block) of sex on emotion perception and emotion on sex perception in Experiment 1 but not Experiment 2. Comparing condition level responses in orthogonal blocks indicated that sex cues moderated emotion categorization and emotion cues moderated sex categorization in both experiments. A symmetrical interaction between bodily sex and emotion cues can be observed in simple categorization as well as in the Garner paradigm, though the presence of Garner interference depended on the valence of the expressions used. Given similar results observed in face processing, finding interactivity in body perception is likely to generalize beyond the study sample.

Development of implicit and explicit attentional modulation of the processing of social cues conveyed by faces and bodies in children and adolescents

“…This result conflicts with the absence of Gardner effect previously reported by Gandolfo and Downing (2020). These conflicting findings might be linked to methodological factors, such as the used emotions, the use of a costum-created vs. validated set of stimuli and insufficient power (Craig and Lipp, 2023). The fact that we observed this effect only for body but not for face processing may be owed to the fact that participants displayed an advantage in recognizing the sex of faces than of bodies (see also Discussion of experiment 3).…”

“…Evidence of the so-called Garner interference effect points to the challenge faced by the attentional control system in disregarding sexual or emotional cues when the primary objective is centered around emotion or sex, respectively (Gilboa-Schechtman et al, 2004;Atkinson et al, 2005;Becker, 2017). While most of the research on the topic focused on faces, recently, Craig and Lipp (2023) found that also bodily sex cues moderated emotion categorization and, vice versa, the emotion expression of bodies moderated sex categorization, aligning with previous evidence on face processing. This result conflicts with the absence of Gardner effect previously reported by Gandolfo and Downing (2020).…”

“…In fact, exclusively in the Emotion recognition task, the congruency between the sex of the target and flankers facilitated the recognition of the emotion expressions of the target bodies in emotion incongruent trials. This result has been interpreted in light of the Garner interference effect, for which the attentional control system struggles to disregard sexual or emotional cues when the primary objective of the task at-hand is centered around emotion or sex, respectively (Gilboa-Schechtman et al, 2004;Atkinson et al, 2005;Becker, 2017;Craig and Lipp, 2023). In the context of this experiment, the aforementioned effect further Relationship between Accuracy and Age (in years) for faces (left panel) and bodies (right panel) as a function of Sex congruency in Experiment 3.…”