Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Empirical investigations demonstrate similar cognitive processing patterns for objects and sexualized women. However, sexual objectification (SO) extends beyond sexualized women. To explore SO, we apply eye-tracking technique in conjunction with local/global and body-inversion paradigms. Ninety-four college students participated in the study. The visual gaze on non-sexualized South-Asian wo(men) images and the response time in Navon task post-priming with upright and inverted images is analyzed. Results indicate that participants of both genders gaze objectify females. Interestingly, male images are also gaze objectified. A comparison of attention allocation to face versus sexual body parts in upright versus inverted female images shows a reduced face-to-body ratio for the latter orientation, indicating a gender-specific attention shift. Combining the two SO theories, the study objectively substantiates the claim that women undergo objectification in even in non-sexual attire.