Participant taking part in the study
Photo Credit: Courtesy of University of Exeter
Scientific Frontline: Extended "At a Glance" Summary: Disrupting Objectification via Brain Stimulation
The Core Concept: Applying transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the scalp temporarily reduces the perceptual bias associated with the sexual objectification of women, leading viewers to process sexualized images of women more like people and less like objects.
Key Distinction/Mechanism: The study used the "inversion effect" (people recognize humans better upright than upside down, but orientation matters less for objects) to measure objectification. Typically, sexualized images of women exhibit a reduced inversion effect. The tDCS intervention—a mild electrical current applied for 10 minutes—improved the recognition of upright sexualized female images, effectively removing the perceptual difference between how images of men and women were processed by the viewers' visual systems.
Major Frameworks/Components:
- Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS): A non-invasive neuromodulation technique using a weak current passed between electrodes on the scalp (left forehead and above the right eyebrow).
- The Inversion Effect: A psychological metric used to determine whether a visual stimulus is processed globally (as a person) or locally (as an object).
- Sexual Objectification: The cognitive process of treating a person as a body to be viewed or used, linked to negative societal and psychological outcomes (e.g., body shame, anxiety).
Branch of Science: Psychology, Neuroscience
Future Application: While not a "cure for sexism" or a measure of behavioral change, this technique offers a novel laboratory method for researchers to investigate the underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms of how gender-based biases arise in perception.
Why It Matters: Previous research reduced perceptual bias by altering the images (e.g., pixelation) or the viewer's mindset. This study demonstrates for the first time that acting directly on the visual processing centers of the brain can alter the perception of objectification, indicating that the bias resides in cognitive processing rather than solely in the images themselves.
Applying mild electrical stimulation to the brain temporarily removed a perceptual bias linked to the sexual objectification of women, in the first study of its kind.
People are much better at recognizing faces and bodies when they are upright than when they are upside down—a sign that we are seeing a person—whereas for objects it makes far less difference. Laboratory studies have found that, in both male and female viewers, this upright advantage shrinks for sexualized images of women but not men, suggesting they are processed more like objects.
A University of Exeter study of 76 students found that applying a mild electric current to the scalp for 10 minutes improved how well participants recognized upright sexualized images of women, compared with a placebo, and removed a difference in the way images of women and men were processed.
Professor Ciro Civile, of the University of Exeter, who led the study, said, “Sexual objectification means treating a person as a body to be looked at or used, rather than as a whole person. It’s dehumanizing and most often experienced by women.”
Sexual objectification is pervasive in film, TV, social media, and advertising, and has been linked to greater tolerance of harassment, as well as body shame, anxiety, eating disorders, and depression. It also encourages self-objectification, where women internalize other people’s view of them and come to judge themselves by their appearance and by public approval.
Professor Civile said, “Our findings are initial evidence that the way our visual system processes sexualized images of women can be changed, at least temporarily, by mildly stimulating the brain. This was a lab study—we didn’t measure attitudes or behavior, and brain stimulation is no cure for sexism—but it gives us a new way to study how objectification works.”
The new study, published in the journal Social Neuroscience, involved 54 female students and 22 male students. The researchers used the upside-down test, which measures what is known as the inversion effect.
Participants were asked to memorize images of male and female models in underwear, photographed in sexualized poses and shown both upright and upside down. They were then asked whether they recognized the models when these were mixed in with images they hadn’t seen previously.
While participants carried out the task, half the group received a mild electrical current to the scalp for 10 minutes, using a technique called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). It involves a weak current being passed between two small electrodes resting on the scalp—one on the left side of the forehead and the other above the right eyebrow. The other half of participants were given a placebo treatment of just 30 seconds of stimulation, and neither the participants nor the experimenters knew who was in which group. The technique is widely used in research and usually causes no more than a mild tingling sensation. No adverse effects were reported in the study.
In the placebo group, participants recognized images of male models much more easily when they were upright than when they were upside down—the usual signature of processing an image as a person. For images of women, that advantage was significantly smaller, closer to the pattern seen for objects.
In the group who received the active electric brain stimulation, recognition of upright images of women improved, and the difference between how images of men and women were processed was no longer present. The stimulation made no difference to the upright advantage for images of men. Recognition was tested during the stimulation or immediately afterward, so the study did not measure how long the effect lasts.
Professor Civile said, “Until now, studies had reduced this bias by changing the images or the viewer’s mindset—for example, by pixelating sexual body parts, giving humanizing information, or making people feel less powerful. We acted directly on the brain of the person doing the looking instead. Both groups saw exactly the same pictures, so the bias seems to lie in how we process the images rather than in the images themselves, which opens new avenues for understanding how gender-based biases arise in perception.”
The brain stimulation technique followed a protocol that Professor Civile’s laboratory at Exeter has previously used to reduce other biases in face recognition, including the tendency to recognize faces of one’s own race and one’s own age group more accurately than others. In those studies, the stimulation removed the bias by reducing people’s advantage for faces from their own group; here, it worked by improving recognition of the upright images of women.
Published in journal: Social Neuroscience
Authors: Ciro Civile, and Arwen Stephens
Source/Credit: University of Exeter | Louise Vennells
Edited by: Scientific Frontline
Reference Number: psy102626_01
