In a third iteration of the survey participants had to pick four faces out of a lineup of eight faces varied for expression and width that they might select either as their financial advisor or as the winner of a power-lifting competition. Similarly, for those faces lacking structural cues, people could no longer perceive strength but could still perceive personality traits based on facial expressions. In the first variation, for faces lacking emotional cues, people could no longer perceive personality traits but could still perceive strength based on width. The researchers then showed two additional sets of participants the same faces, this time either with areas relevant to facial expressions obscured or the width cropped. Again, people thought a happy expression, but not an angry one, indicated friendliness, trustworthiness - and in this case, warmth. Participants rated each face for the same traits as in the first survey, with the addition of a rating for warmth. In a second survey facial expression and facial structure were manipulated in computer-generated faces.
Surprisingly, participants did not rank faces as indicative of physical strength based on facial expression but graded faces that were very broad as that of a strong individual. An analysis revealed that participants generally ranked people with a happy expression as friendly and trustworthy but not those with angry expressions. A separate group of subjects scored each face on an emotional scale from “very angry” to “very happy.” And three experts not involved in either of the previous two ratings to avoid confounding results calculated the facial width-to-height ratio for each face.
Study subjects rated how friendly, trustworthy or strong the person in each photo appeared. The team’s first experiment featured photographs of 10 different people presenting five different facial expressions each. More importantly, the research also revealed the unexpected finding that perceptions of abilities such as physical strength are not dependent on facial expressions but rather on facial bone structure.
Perfect face features series#
For those of us seeking to appear friendly and trustworthy to others, a new study underscores an old, chipper piece of advice: Put on a happy face.Ī newly published series of experiments by cognitive neuroscientists at New York University is reinforcing the relevance of facial expressions to perceptions of characteristics such as trustworthiness and friendliness. As such, it can be a stressful task to select the photo that conveys the best impression of ourselves. For better or worse, viewers then tend to make snap judgments about someone’s personality or character from a single shot.
Perfect face features update#
Most digitally minded people continually post and update pictures of themselves at professional, social media and dating sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Tinder. Selfies, headshots, mug shots - photos of oneself convey more these days than snapshots ever did back in the Kodak era.
0 kommentar(er)
