An Examination of the Error-Related Negativity, Stereotype Valence, and the Recognition of Racially Biased Errors

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2012
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Haverford College. Department of Psychology
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
The Weapon's Identification Task (WIT; Payne, 2001) was used in conjunction with electroencephalographic recording to examine neural responses to racially biased versus unbiased errors in a paradigm pioneered by Amodio et al. (2004). The task was extended to examine four different kinds of stereotypes: Black-negative, Black-positive, Asian-negative, and Asian-positive. This extension was more effective for Black than Asian stereotypes; reaction time and accuracy data confirmed stereotype facilitation effects for the Black faces only. The predicted effect of a heightened response to racially biased errors relative to unbiased ones (first reported by Amodio et al., 2004) was not found: we did not see a larger-magnitude error-related negativity (ERN), an event-related potential (ERP) component, following the commission of racially biased errors. However, the data revealed consistent effects of racial information on responding, including differences in neural responses to minority versus White face primes and differences between Black and Asian blocks. A follow-up analysis of the Black blocks revealed an interaction that reached significance in the opposite direction of the ERN effect found in Amodio et al. (2004; 2006; 2008). Taken together, our results did not replicate the "Amodio Effect," but did demonstrate the sensitivity of the ERN to racial information. Hyper-monitoring in the presence of Black face primes and hypersensitivity to errors on Black face trials are discussed as possible explanations for our findings.
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