After viewing high heels, everything seems a little more masculine
By Jon Bardin
September 26, 2012, 2:57 p.m.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-after-viewing-high-heels-20120926,0,7294977.storyRepeated exposure to objects like high-heeled shoes and electric razors that are typically associated with one gender or the other biases people's perceptions of whether human faces are male or female, according to a new study. And in a twist, the research shows that exposure to female-associated objects makes faces look more male, and vice versa.
It may seem strange that viewing something for an extended period of time can lead to increased perception of its opposite, but the effect is common enough to have a name: adaptation. It crops up under a variety of circumstances: If you look at a computer screen colored red and it suddenly turns white, you will see green, for example. Similar effects have been seen for an object's shape, or its motion.
But adaptation can also rise above these basic visual features and impact our perception of "high-level" concepts like race and gender: Prolonged exposure to a stereotypically male gait, for example, has been shown to make a subsequent gender-neutral gait look female.
Past studies have focused on objects from the same category. For instance, the way a face looks has been shown to bias perception of later faces. This makes it difficult to rule out that some particular feature -- say, the face's shape -- is what's biasing the viewer.
