Modeling first impressions from highly variable facial images

Abstract

First impressions of social traits, such as trustworthiness or dominance, are reliably perceived in faces, and despite their questionable validity they can have considerable real-world consequences. We sought to uncover the information driving such judgments, using an attribute-based approach. Attributes (physical facial features) were objectively measured from feature positions and colors in a database of highly variable "ambient" face photographs, and then used as input for a neural network to model factor dimensions (approachability, youthful-attractiveness, and dominance) thought to underlie social attributions. A linear model based on this approach was able to account for 58% of the variance in raters' impressions of previously unseen faces, and factor-attribute correlations could be used to rank attributes by their importance to each factor. Reversing this process, neural networks were then used to predict facial attributes and corresponding image properties from specific combinations of factor scores. In this way, the factors driving social trait impressions could be visualized as a series of computer-generated cartoon face-like images, depicting how attributes change along each dimension. This study shows that despite enormous variation in ambient images of faces, a substantial proportion of the variance in first impressions can be accounted for through linear changes in objectively defined features.

Dog owners show experience-based viewing behaviour in judging dog face approachability

“…2). It is plausible that dog-owners might use an experienced-based gaze strategy for extracting and/or analyzing facial information regarding approachability, such as valence or expressive facial cues (Willis et al, 2011;Vernon et al, 2014). This ability may develop through necessity as it would be beneficial for dog-owners to be able to quickly perceive the mood of their dogs.…”

“…Approachability is one of the facial trait judgements people often made (sometimes automatically) to form first impressions (Vernon, Sutherland, Young, & Hartley, 2014), and is probably more relevant when encountering non-human animals in comparison with other facial traits, such as attractiveness, trustworthiness and dominance. For human faces, the judgement of approachability corresponds closely to trustworthiness/valence rating (Vernon et al, 2014), and the perceived facial expression is crucial for forming an impression of approachability (Willis, Palermo, & Burke, 2011;Vernon et al, 2014).…”

“…Approachability is one of the facial trait judgements people often made (sometimes automatically) to form first impressions (Vernon, Sutherland, Young, & Hartley, 2014), and is probably more relevant when encountering non-human animals in comparison with other facial traits, such as attractiveness, trustworthiness and dominance. For human faces, the judgement of approachability corresponds closely to trustworthiness/valence rating (Vernon et al, 2014), and the perceived facial expression is crucial for forming an impression of approachability (Willis, Palermo, & Burke, 2011;Vernon et al, 2014). Considering that humans would name familiar faces faster than unfamiliar ones (Bar & Bierderman, 1998) and demonstrate proficient gaze pattern in the viewing of more-experienced familiar faces (Barton et al, 2006;Heisz & Shore, 2008), we hypothesized that dog-owners may use less viewing time and adopt a more 'efficient' gaze strategy (e.g., fewer number of fixations and fixation allocation at task-relevant informative facial regions) to judge the approachability of dog faces.…”

Changing the personality of a face: Perceived Big Two and Big Five personality factors modeled in real photographs.

“…Factor analyses based on personality judgments regarding these more diverse sets of faces revealed an additional dimension of social perception, namely youthful-attractiveness (Sutherland et al, 2013;Vernon, Sutherland, Young, & Hartley, 2014) or attractiveness-health-extraversion (Wolffhechel et al, 2014). For reasons of completeness we included attractiveness in our analyses.…”

The neuropsychology of first impressions: Evidence from Huntington's disease

“…Decisions about a person's trustworthiness or dominance based on their face are of course of low validity, though many researchers take seriously the possibility that there may be an underlying 'kernel of truth' (Bruce & Young, 2012 This approach creates images that capture a range of everyday cues to the appropriate trait, and has been validated in previous studies (Mattavelli, et al, 2012;Sutherland et al, 2013;Sutherland, Young, Mootz, & Oldmeadow, 2015;Vernon, Sutherland, Young, & Hartley, 2014). Figure 1a and 1b about here, please…”