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Isolating stereotypical gender in a grammatical gender language: Evidence from eye movements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2014

CHIARA REALI ,
YULIA ESAULOVA  and
LISA VON STOCKHAUSEN
CHIARA REALI*
Affiliation:
University of Duisburg–Essen
YULIA ESAULOVA
Affiliation:
University of Duisburg–Essen
LISA VON STOCKHAUSEN
Affiliation:
University of Duisburg–Essen
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Chiara Reali, Department of Psychology, University of Duisburg–Essen, Berliner Platz 6–8, Essen 45127, Germany. E-mail: chiara.reali@uni-duisburg-essen.de
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Abstract

The present study investigates the effects of stereotypical gender during anaphor resolution in German. The study aims at isolating the effects of gender-stereotypical cues from the effects of grammatical gender. Experiment 1 employs descriptions of typically male, female, and neutral occupations that contain no grammatical cue to the referent gender, followed by a masculine or feminine role noun, in a reaction time priming paradigm. Experiment 2 uses eye-tracking methodology to examine how the gender typicality of these descriptions affects the resolution of a matching or mismatching anaphoric pronoun. Results show a mismatch effect manifest at very early stages of processing. Both experiments also reveal asymmetries in the processing of the two genders suggesting that the representation of female rather than male referents is more flexible in counterstereotypical contexts. No systematic relation is found between eye movements and individual gender attitude measures, whereas a reliable correlation is found with gender typicality ratings.

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Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , July 2015 , pp. 977 - 1006
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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