Perceptual adaptation to facial asymmetries

Rhodes, Gillian; Louw, Kim R.; Evangelista, Emma

doi:10.3758/pbr.16.3.503

Cited by 18 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…For example, attractiveness depends in part on facial symmetry (Rhodes et al, 1998; Perrett et al, 1999). Moreover, when observers are exposed to asymmetric faces they adapt so that the faces tend to appear more symmetric, consistent with a normalization for this configural dimension (Paras et al, 2004; Morikawa, 2005; Rhodes et al, 2009). …”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 65%

Stimulus Requirements for Face Perception: An Analysis Based on “Totem Poles”

Paras¹,

Webster²

2013

Front. Psychology

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The stimulus requirements for perceiving a face are not well defined but are presumably simple, for vivid faces can often by seen in random or natural images such as cloud or rock formations. To characterize these requirements, we measured where observers reported the impression of faces in images defined by symmetric 1/f noise. This allowed us to examine the prominence and properties of different features and their necessary configurations. In these stimuli many faces can be perceived along the vertical midline, and appear stacked at multiple scales, reminiscent of “totem poles.” In addition to symmetry, the faces in noise are invariably upright and thus reveal the inversion effects that are thought to be a defining property of configural face processing. To a large extent, seeing a face required seeing eyes, and these were largely restricted to dark regions in the images. Other features were more subordinate and showed relatively little bias in polarity. Moreover, the prominence of eyes depended primarily on their luminance contrast and showed little influence of chromatic contrast. Notably, most faces were rated as clearly defined with highly distinctive attributes, suggesting that once an image area is coded as a face it is perceptually completed consistent with this interpretation. This suggests that the requisite trigger features are sufficient to holistically “capture” the surrounding noise structure to form the facial representation. Yet despite these well articulated percepts, we show in further experiments that while a pair of dark spots added to noise images appears face-like, these impressions fail to elicit other signatures of face processing, and in particular, fail to elicit an N170 or fixation patterns typical for images of actual faces. These results suggest that very simple stimulus configurations are sufficient to invoke many aspects of holistic and configural face perception while nevertheless failing to fully engage the neural machinery of face coding, implying that that different signatures of face processing may have different stimulus requirements.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 65%

Stimulus Requirements for Face Perception: An Analysis Based on “Totem Poles”

Paras¹,

Webster²

2013

Front. Psychology

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“…Previous evidence has indicated that preferences for particular faces or face characteristics are shaped by a range of factors, including personality preferences [27], the rater’s own facial characteristics [28], features of the socioeconomic and cultural environment [29–33], previous visual experience [34–38], and history of social learning [18, 39–43]. Individual preferences for faces are also correlated among friends and spouses [12].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual Aesthetic Preferences for Faces Are Shaped Mostly by Environments, Not Genes

et al. 2015

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Summary Although certain characteristics of human faces are broadly considered more attractive (e.g. symmetry, averageness), people also routinely disagree with each other on the relative attractiveness of faces. That is, to some significant degree, beauty is in the “eye of the beholder”. Here, we investigate the origins of these individual differences in face preferences using a twin design, allowing us to estimate the relative contributions of genetic and environmental variation to individual face attractiveness judgments or face preferences. We first show that individual face preferences (IP) can be reliably measured and are readily dissociable from other types of attractiveness judgments (e.g. judgments of scenes, objects). Next we show that individual face preferences result primarily from environments that are unique to each individual. This is in striking contrast to individual differences in face identity recognition, which result primarily from variations in genes [1]. We thus complete an etiological double dissociation between two core domains of social perception (judgments of identity versus attractiveness) within the same visual stimulus (the face). At the same time, we provide an example, rare in behavioral genetics, of a reliably and objectively measured behavioral characteristic where variations are shaped mostly by the environment. The large impact of experience on individual face preferences provides a novel window into the evolution and architecture of the social brain, while lending new empirical support to the long-standing claim that environments shape individual notions of what is attractive.

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“…While fluctuating asymmetries randomly deviate from perfect symmetry (eg right hemiface equally likely to be larger or smaller than left hemiface), directional asymmetries show a consistent bias across a population which our perceptual mechanisms have adapted to over time (Rhodes et al 2009). For example, the right hemiface is generally larger than the left hemiface (Farkas and Cheung 1981).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Different Signals of Personality and Health from the Two Sides of the Face

Kramer

Ward

2011

Perception

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Abstract. Previous studies demonstrate that people with different personality traits have different looking faces. We investigated whether personality and health information are differently signalled by the two hemifaces. Using composite images created from women with high and low scores on health and personality dimensions, we investigated discrimination accuracy with original and mirrored hemifaces. By comparing discrimination accuracy for particular types of hemiface, we address issues regarding both the location of information signals and how these signals are conveyed. From the hemiface stimuli, participants could accurately identify three of the Big Five traits, along with health. We found differences in which hemiface could be more accurately identified, depending on the expressed trait. Emotional stability and health were more accurately discriminated from the right hemiface, while extraversion showed higher accuracy from the left hemiface. We found evidence for differences between hemifaces related to both directional asymmetries and to other information content. Finally, our results also address ongoing debate about which side of the face is more attractive, as we found attractiveness differences between hemifaces depended upon the personality trait most clearly expressed.

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Perceptual adaptation to facial asymmetries

Cited by 18 publications

References 22 publications

Stimulus Requirements for Face Perception: An Analysis Based on “Totem Poles”

Stimulus Requirements for Face Perception: An Analysis Based on “Totem Poles”

Individual Aesthetic Preferences for Faces Are Shaped Mostly by Environments, Not Genes

Different Signals of Personality and Health from the Two Sides of the Face

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