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BBC:
Clothes influence race perception
Scientists dressed people in either smart business attire or work overalls and asked onlookers to categorise the faces as white or black.
Faces were more likely to be seen as white when dressed smartly and black when in overalls, the researchers found.
Scientists think that if people are made aware of the strategies they use to evaluate other people, the effects of these subconscious judgements could be lessened.
“This is a really interesting paper testing hypotheses about how we categorise people,” said psychologist Lisa DeBruine who studies facial recognition at the University of Aberdeen and who was not involved in the work.
The researchers asked about 20 volunteers to assign men’s and women’s faces, which ranged in skin tone and outfit, to one of two race categories - white or black.
Of course the best race to be is green $$$$$The team from Tufts University, Medford, Stanford University and University of California, Irvine, found that for the most racially ambiguous faces participants were 4% more likely to see a face as black if the person was wearing overalls rather than a suit.
In other words, the most ambiguous face was categorised as black about 61% of the time when wearing a suit, and 65% of the time when wearing overalls.
By tracking the volunteers’ hand movements as they moved a mouse to make their decision, the researchers were able to pick up on momentary hesitations giving them clues to how these decisions were made.