Out of sight, out of mind: racial retrieval cues increase the accessibility of social justice concepts

ABSTRACT

Photographs provide critical retrieval cues for personal remembering, but few studies have considered this phenomenon at the collective level. In this research, we examined the psychological consequences of visual attention to the presence (or absence) of racially charged retrieval cues within American racial segregation photographs. We hypothesised that attention to racial retrieval cues embedded in historical photographs would increase social justice concept accessibility. In Study 1, we recorded gaze patterns with an eye-tracker among participants viewing images that contained racial retrieval cues or were digitally manipulated to remove them. In Study 2, we manipulated participants’ gaze behaviour by either directing visual attention toward racial retrieval cues, away from racial retrieval cues, or directing attention within photographs where racial retrieval cues were missing. Across Studies 1 and 2, visual attention to racial retrieval cues in photographs documenting historical segregation predicted social justice concept accessibility.

KEYWORDS:

• Collective forgetting
• racism
• history
• photography
• Jim Crow

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Sean Chalk, Jared Harpole, and Shannon Leonard for their assistance in data collection and Glenn Adams, Stephanie Payne, and Jyotsna Vaid for helpful comments on earlier drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interests was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Supplemental analyses with only White participants did not change interpretation of results. The main effects of visual attention, B = 0.19, t(33) = 1.13, p = .27, and photograph condition, B = −0.02, t(33) = −0.14, p = .89, were non-significant; but, the interaction was, B = −2.84, t(32) = −2.78, p = .009, ƒ² = .32.

2 Supplemental analyses with only White participants were similar, but stronger than those reported in text. There was no effect of baseline accessibility, B = 0.11, t(45) = 0.80, p = .43; but, photograph condition was significant, B = .39, t(45) = 2.84, p = .007, ƒ² = .19. Contrast tests revealed the direct gaze condition differed from the averted gaze conditions, t(45) = 3.07, p = .004; but the averted gaze conditions did not differ from each other, t(45) = .36, p = .72.