We collected norms on the gender stereotypicality of an extensive list of role nouns in Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, and Slovak to be used as a basis for the selection of stimulus material in future studies. We present a web-based tool (https://www.unifr.ch/lcg/) that we developed to collect these norms and that we expect to be useful for other researchers as well. In essence, we provide (a) norms across languages and (b) a tool to facilitate cross-language as well as cross-cultural comparisons when researchers are interested in the investigation of the impact of stereotypicality on the processing of role nouns.Gender stereotypes across seven languagesNorms on the gender perception of role nouns in Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, and Slovak Thoughts and conceptual categorizations, as well as their relation to language, have long been studied and debated in cognitive psychology (e.g., Phillips & Boroditsky, 2003; Slobin, 1996). Within this domain, the mental representation of gender has been of particular interest, as research revealed its reliance on both properties of the language, such as grammatical gender, and perceivers' concepts, such as stereotypes (e.g., Carreiras, Garnham, Oakhill, & Cain, 1996; Gygax, Gabriel, Sarrasin, Oakhill, & Garnham, 2008; Stahlberg, Braun, Irmen, & Sczesny, 2007).Research that aims at disentangling the impact of these sources can greatly profit from cross-linguistic and/or cross-cultural comparisons. To facilitate such research, the present study has two objectives:First, we provide norms on the gender stereotypicality (or conceptual gender) of an extensive number of role nouns in seven European languages. These norms enable researchers to take gender-associations into account when selecting stimulus material especially for cross-linguistic or cross-cultural studies. Second, we present a web-based tool that we developed for the collection of these norms in different languages. This tool takes into account cross-linguistic variations in with the way that the gender of nouns with human referents is grammatically encoded, so that equivalent procedures can be used with each language. More specifically, a questionnaire design was created that can be used despite such variations. As outlined below, the existence of grammatical gender in some languages, but not others, had implications for the questionnaire format used in this study. As a side effect, the tool can easily be extended for use with further languages. We believe that this tool will, therefore, be a valuable resource for researchers in various psychological disciplines Gender stereotypes across seven languages ! 5 who wish to systematically collect norms for different languages and/or from specific populations, for future studies.Grammatical gender refers to a type of noun classification. In relation to this classification, most European languages can be assigned to one of the following four categories (Braun, Oakhill, & Garnham, 2011) : grammatical gender (e.g. French), ...

Grammatically masculine role-nouns (e.g., Studentenmasc.'students') can refer to men and women but may favor an interpretation where only men are considered the referent. If true, this has implications for a society aiming to achieve equal representation in the workplace since, for example, job adverts use such role descriptions. To investigate the interpretation of role-nouns, the present ERP study assessed grammatical gender processing in German. Twenty participants read sentences where a role-noun (masculine or feminine) introduced a group of people, followed by a congruent (masculine-men, feminine-women) or incongruent (masculine-women, feminine-men) continuation. Both for feminine-men and masculine-women continuations a P600 (500 to 800 ms) was observed; another positivity was already present from 300 to 500 ms for feminine-men continuations but critically not for masculine-women continuations. The results imply a malebiased rather than gender-neutral interpretation of the masculine-despite widespread usage of the masculine as a gender-neutral form-suggesting that masculine forms are inadequate for representing genders equally.

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In everyday life, we actively engage in different activities from a first-person perspective. However, experimental psychological research in the field of event perception is often limited to relatively passive, third-person computer-based paradigms. In the present study, we tested the feasibility of using immersive virtual reality in combination with eye tracking with participants in active motion. Behavioral research has shown that speakers of aspectual and non-aspectual languages attend to goals (endpoints) in motion events differently, with speakers of non-aspectual languages showing relatively more attention to goals (endpoint bias). In the current study, native speakers of German (non-aspectual) and English (aspectual) walked on a treadmill across 3-D terrains in VR, while their eye gaze was continuously tracked. Participants encountered landmark objects on the side of the road, and potential endpoint objects at the end of it. Using growth curve analysis to analyze fixation patterns over time, we found no differences in eye gaze behavior between German and English speakers. This absence of cross-linguistic differences was also observed in behavioral tasks with the same participants. Methodologically, based on the quality of the data, we conclude that our dynamic eye-tracking setup can be reliably used to study what people look at while moving through rich and dynamic environments that resemble the real world.