Short and Sweet

i-Perception
Barbie-Cueing Weight 2019 Vol. 10(3), 1–5
! The Author(s) 2019
Perception DOI: 10.1177/2041669519850590
journals.sagepub.com/home/ipe

Elizabeth J. Saccone and Philippe A. Chouinard

Department of Psychology and Counselling, School of Psychology and
Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Abstract
It was previously reported that Barbie feels heavier than Ken when both dolls are matched for
mass. However, we felt it was unclear from this earlier report if the effects went beyond a typical
size-weight illusion. By providing better controls, we conclude more confidently that doll features
other than size influence weight perception. Specifically, conceptual knowledge, in the form of
culturally reinforced biases, seems to affect how we perceive their weight.

Keywords
perception/action, top-down perception, weight illusions, weight perception

Date received: 23 January 2019; accepted: 23 April 2019

Through imaginative play, children pretend that toys are machines, animals, and people from
the real world. In making these toys, toy companies sometimes exaggerate particular features
associated with their real-world counterparts. Consider Barbie and Ken dolls (Mattel Inc.,
El Segundo, CA, USA). Ken portrays a youthful, masculine man with a lean, muscular
physique, whereas Barbie emulates more feminine qualities with her smaller stature and
overly exaggerated, unrealistic figure. In a truly unique study, Dijker (2008) used dolls to
investigate how exaggerated features, and any (implicit or explicit) associations we might
have about them, can influence their expected and perceived heaviness. He hypothesised
that people would expect Ken-like dolls to be heavier than Barbie-like dolls, given our
culturally reinforced biases from childhood, and that these expectations would also affect
perceived weight.
Dijker (2008) reengineered the dolls to have equal mass to determine if people’s perception
of their weight would follow a size-weight illusion (SWI)—a well-documented phenomenon
in which the smaller of two objects of equal mass feels heavier (Charpentier, 1891; for
reviews, see Dijker, 2014; Saccone & Chouinard, 2019). One theory, the sensorimotor
mismatch theory, proposes that the apparent weight differences are driven by a mismatch
between expected and experienced weight (Dijker, 2014). More precisely, people expect the

Corresponding author:
Elizabeth J. Saccone, School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Edwards Road, Flora Hill, Victoria 3552,
Australia.
Email: [email protected]

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2 i-Perception 10(3)

smaller object to be lighter and therefore apply less force than is required to lift it. Additional
force is needed, causing the object to feel heavier. Conversely, the larger object is lifted with
excessive force, and applying corrective forces to stabilise it in the air causes it to feel lighter.
Because Dijker (2008) was interested in the influence of culturally reinforced biases, he
created a cohort of uncanny dolls—each with the same mass but with an exaggerated quality.
Specifically, the dolls emphasised cuteness, youth, old age, masculinity, femininity, different
races, or some combination of these. Participants rated the dolls’ expected (pre-lift) weight
and perceived (post-lift) weight. As hypothesised, culturally reinforced biases seemed to affect
both measurements. Participants expected dolls emulating strength and masculinity to weigh
more, yet perceived them to weigh less. Participants in a control experiment lifted a series of
cans that varied in volume but weighed the same as the dolls. Participants reported an SWI;
smaller cans felt heavier. Still, this illusion seemed weaker than that found with the dolls.
Taken together, Dijker concluded that culturally reinforced biases influenced the dolls’
perceived weight beyond a simple SWI.
However, we felt that there were some shortcomings with the design. Dijker (2008) did not
report the volume of the dolls nor did he match the cans’ volumes to the dolls. In our view, it
is imperative that control objects match the dolls in volume as well as weight to confidently
conclude that the dolls elicit a stronger weight illusion than a typical SWI. Thus, Experiment
1 aimed to do precisely that, using 31 right-handed adults from the La Trobe University
community (16 females, 15 males; Mage ¼ 23.84 years, SDage ¼ 4.68). All participants in this
study gave written informed consent to the procedures, which were approved by the
University’s ethics committee.
Stimuli were two sets of objects (i.e., dolls and control objects), matched in weight,
volume, height, and colour (Figure 1(a) and (b)). The dolls were Ken (Denim Blues model)
and Barbie (Love That Lace model) from Mattel’s 2016 Fashionistas series, which graced the
cover of Time magazine (not as Person of the Year, which went to President Trump instead).
The dolls underwent body sculpting in our workshop until they both weighed 122 g. We
drilled holes in Ken to reduce his weight and implanted lead in Barbie’s back to increase
hers (Figure 1(c) and (d)).
Following these treatments, we gave the dolls a bath to determine the amount of water
displaced after submersion (Figure 1(e)). These values were taken as their volumes. Using this
information, we created the control objects—3D-printed cylinders—that matched the dolls in
both volume (Ken: 328.25 cm3, Barbie: 246.29 cm3) and height (Ken: 31.2 cm, Barbie:
26.5 cm). The cylinders were painted a similar colour to the dolls’ skin, because colour can
influence perceived weight (Walker, Francis, & Walker, 2010). Finally, we inserted lead
pellets in the centre of the cylinders, held in place by foam, so that they also weighed 122 g.
In Experiment 1, participants closed their eyes and one stimulus pair (dolls or cylinders)
was placed on the table in front of them. Participants then opened their eyes, hefted one
stimulus at a time, and provided heaviness ratings using an absolute magnitude estimation
procedure described elsewhere (Buckingham & Goodale, 2013). They used a different hand
for each stimulus and then lifted each of them with the opposite hands. This procedure was
repeated for the second stimulus pair. The order in which the pairs were presented, and the
starting hand used to heft the stimuli, was counterbalanced across participants.
Participants’ ratings were standardised into Z-scores by subtracting each value from their
mean, divided by the standard deviation. A 2 (Object: dolls, cylinders)  2 (Size: small, large)
repeated measures analysis of variance was performed on the standardised ratings
(Figure 2(a)). There was a main effect of Object, F(1, 30) ¼ 14.75, p < .001, 2p ¼ .330,
reflecting higher estimates for the cylinders than dolls. There was also a main effect of
Size, F(1, 30) ¼ 35.34, p < .001, 2p ¼ .541, with the small doll/cylinder rated as heavier than
Saccone and Chouinard 3

Figure 1. The Ken and Barbie dolls (a) and cylinders (b) used in the experiments. We drilled holes in Ken to
reduce his weight (c) and added lead to Barbie to increase hers (d). Ken and Barbie’s volumes were
determined by method of water displacement (e). The dolls did not experience pain or drowning and
tolerated their treatments well given their inanimate disposition.

the large doll/cylinder. The interaction was significant, F(1, 30) ¼ 4.93, p ¼ .034, 2p ¼ .141,
reflecting a greater difference between Barbie and Ken, t(30) ¼ 6.22, p < .001, Cohen’s
d ¼ 1.12, than the cylinders, t(30) ¼ 2.93, p ¼ .006, Cohen’s d ¼ .53.
Although the pairs were matched in physical volume, the greater perceived weight
difference for Barbie and Ken could potentially be explained by a greater difference in
perceived volume for the dolls, given that object shape and structure can influence
perceived volume (Raghubir & Krishna, 1999). Thus, in Experiment 2, 16 new right-
handers (8 females, 8 males, Mage ¼ 21.56 years, SDage ¼ 1.27) indicated the perceived
volume of each doll/cylinder by pouring a representative amount of water from a large,
transparent container (capacity: 1.8 L; approximately 8.5 cm  8.5 cm  26 cm) into a
smaller, transparent container (capacity: 0.9 L; approximately 9 cm  9 cm  12 cm). They
were asked to pour the amount of liquid they felt would fill each stimulus if it were hollow.
Stimuli were presented as pairs (with appropriate counterbalancing as in Experiment 1) and
participants performed two trials for each pair. They did not touch the objects.
4 i-Perception 10(3)

(a) (b)
* Small
1.2 450
Mean standardised heaviness ratings
Large
* * * *

Mean perceived volume (ml)

400
0.8
350
0.4 300
250
0
200
-0.4 150
100
-0.8
50
-1.2 0
Dolls Cylinders Dolls Cylinders

Figure 2. Mean standardised heaviness ratings (a; Experiment 1) and perceived volume as measured with
the water task (b; Experiment 2) with standard errors for the small (blue) and large (yellow) dolls and
cylinders. Asterisks (*) denote significant differences after correcting for multiple comparisons (p < .05).

Measuring the amount of water (millilitres) poured to represent each stimulus

demonstrated that participants did not perceive greater differences in volume between the
dolls than the cylinders. A 2 (Object)  2 (Size) repeated measures analysis of variance (see
Figure 2(b)) demonstrated a main effect of Size, F(1, 15) ¼ 46.08, p < .001, 2p ¼ .754,
with greater volumes of water assigned for the large objects, but no main effect of Object,
F(1, 15) ¼ 2.78, p ¼ .12, 2p ¼ .156, or interaction, F(1, 15) ¼ 0.10, p ¼ .76, 2p ¼ .007.
Participants also provided magnitude estimates of volume for each stimulus, consistent
with the procedures in Experiment 1, which produced the same pattern of data—Size,
F(1, 15) ¼ 165.54, p < .001, 2p ¼ .917; Object, F(1, 15) ¼ 1.54, p ¼ .23, 2p ¼ .093,
Size  Object, F(1, 15) ¼ 1.64, p ¼ .22, 2p ¼ .099. These two approaches to measuring
perceptual volume correlated with each other, r(62) ¼ .44, p < .001.
These results are informative. We can now say with more confidence that dolls can
influence weight perception beyond a simple SWI, and that this difference is not due to
either physical or perceived differences in volume. Conceptual knowledge, in the form of
culturally reinforced biases, seems to affect how we perceive their weight. This has important
theoretical implications as it suggests that weight perception can be influenced by a top-down
mechanism. Whether or not the features represented by dolls influence perception via
variations in lifting behaviour remains under debate (see Dijker, 2008, for his original
proposals). The findings also demonstrate how cultural biases can permeate even basic
perceptual processing, including our conscious experience of the weight of objects around us.

Acknowledgements
The authors thank Aaron Smith, Rachael Goldsmith, Cody Freeman, Casey Gardiner, and Bailey
Evans for assisting with stimulus construction and data collection.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.
Saccone and Chouinard 5

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article: This work was supported by the Australian Research Council
(DP170103189).

ORCID iD
Elizabeth J. Saccone https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5763-6198

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How to cite this article

Saccone, E. J., & Chouinard, P. A. (2019). Barbie-Cueing Weight Perception. i-Perception, 10(3), 1–5.
doi:10.1177/2041669519850590