Spencer's test aimed to re-create the landmark Doll Test from the 1940s. Those tests, conducted by psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark, were designed to measure how segregation affected African-American children.

The Clarks asked black children to choose between a white doll and -- because at the time, no brown dolls were available -- a white doll painted brown. They asked black children a series of questions and found they overwhelmingly preferred white over brown. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/05/13/doll.study/index.html