Past research on real human faces has shown that out-group members
are commonly perceived as lacking human qualities, which links them to
machines or objects. In this study, we aimed to test whether similar out-group
effects generalize to artificial faces. Caucasian participants were presented with
images of male Caucasian and Indian faces and had to decide whether human
traits (naturally and uniquely human) as well as emotions (primary and
secondary) could or could not be attributed to them. In line with previous
research, we found that naturally human traits and secondary emotions were
attributed less often to the out-group (Indian) than to the in-group (Caucasian),
and this applied to both real and artificial faces. The findings extend prior
research and show that artificial stimuli readily evoke intergroup processes.
This has implications for the design of animated characters, suggesting that outgroup
faces convey less humanness regardless of how life-like their
representation is
