Is face distinctiveness gender based?

Abstract

Two experiments were carried out to study the role of gender category in evaluations of face distinctiveness. In Experiment 1, participants had to evaluate the distinctiveness and the femininity-masculinity of real or artificial composite faces. The composite faces were created by blending either faces of the same gender (sexed composite faces, approximating the sexed prototypes) or faces of both genders (nonsexed composite faces, approximating the face prototype). The results show that the distinctiveness ratings decreased as the number of blended faces increased. Distinctiveness and gender ratings did not covary for real faces or sexed composite faces, but they did vary for nonsexed composite faces. In Experiment 2, participants were asked to state which of two composite faces, one sexed and one nonsexed, was more distinctive. Sexed composite faces were selected less often. The results are interpreted as indicating that distinctiveness is based on sexed prototypes. Implications for face recognition models are discussed.

Is it a he or a she? Behavioral and computational approaches to sex categorization

“…used to encode faces, and it has been suggested that sex is another dimension of the multidimensional space (Baudouin & Tiberghien, 2002;but see Mouchetant-Rostaing, Giard, Bentin, Aguera, & Pernier, 2000, suggesting that facial sex processing is performed in parallel with the perceptual analysis of facial features). Our data, however, do not allow us to determine whether neonate faces were perceived as variations of a nonsexed face prototype (one high-density facial area, equivalent to the neonate sex area) or whether two sexed face prototypes (two high-density areas, one for each neonate sex category) were close to each other (Baudouin & Gallay, 2006). SF information, assessed by a Gabor wavelet model, furthers our understanding of sex categorization.…”

“…This asymmetry in variability and the overlap between the two categories is the type of statistical distribution that leads to categorization asymmetries in artificial and biological neural systems (French, Mareschal, Mermillod, & Quinn, 2004;Mermillod et al, 2009b). Neonate faces close to the central values have similar SF content, and discrimination of sex based on SF may be more difficult than for those faces located farther from the neonate group (Baudouin & Gallay, 2006). Boys' faces have a greater variance and stuck out of the neonates' group more frequently, which may have improved sex categorization in the group.…”

Exploring children’s face-space: A multidimensional scaling analysis of the mental representation of facial identity

“…Specifically, we asked adults to rate the similarity of 630 pairs of faces from young adult Caucasian women. We limited the face stimuli to female faces because it is unclear whether sex of face is one dimension of a single face-space or whether there are different face-spaces for the two sexes (Baudouin & Gallay, 2006;Bruce, Burton, & Dench, 1994;Johnston et al, 1997;Little et al, 2005). We also used the same hair for all faces to tap into more subtle differences between children's and adults' representations than those examined in Pedelty et al (1985) study, in which the 12 faces differed markedly in hairstyle and hair color.…”

Speeding While Black? Assessing the Generalizability of Lange et al.’s (2001, 2005) New Jersey Turnpike Speeding Survey Findings

“…Gender recognition and designation cues are multiple and include hair, height, weight, clothes, makeup, olfaction traceable to perfume and aftershave, voice, anatomy, and gait (Baudouin & Gallay, 2006;Pollick, Kay, Heim, & Stringer, 2005). Lange et al's (2001Lange et al's ( , 2005 raters, however, were limited to black and white photographs of drivers in vehicles behind windshields and steering wheels, while some of those drivers almost certainly had their heads at least partially turned because they were changing lanes, talking with passengers, or adjusting sound systems.…”