In recent experiments at New York University, it was found that facial expression plays a critical role in assessing characteristics such as the trustworthiness and goodwill of a stranger. But we evaluate physical strength only by the shape of the face, without any reference to human facial expressions.
In the first phase of the study, participants were shown photographs of ten men, each showing five different facial expressions. Each photo was rated by subjects on a scale of friendliness, trustworthiness, and presumptive physical strength. A separate group of volunteers gave the faces in the photographs ratings ranging from very angry to happy. And three more experts, who were not part of the other groups, tried to determine the ratio of the height and width of the face for each person in the photographs by eye. Experiments have shown that people tend to consider happy-looking people to be friendly and trustworthy. Surprisingly, the facial expressions in the photographs did not affect the assessment of the physical strength of the strangers - this parameter was determined only by the proportions of their faces (wide-faced people seemed to the experts to be stronger).
In the second stage of the experiment, the features and facial expressions of the evaluated man were generated by a computer. The subjects evaluated the images by the same parameters as in the first stage, as well as by an additional scale of "warmth". As before, the experts mistook happy people for trustworthy and friendly people. They also seemed to the participants of the experiment the most kind-hearted.
After that, the experts were shown new portraits - cropped to width or with emotions hidden with the help of retouching. Without seeing emotions, the subjects could not assess the friendliness and reliability of people, but they still made assumptions about the physical strength of strangers (by the proportions of the faces). In the opposite cases, when emotions were present in the images, but the cropping of the photo did not give an estimate of the width of the face, the subjects were unable to draw conclusions about the strength of the person.
At the third stage, the subjects made a choice from the proposed photographs. The participants in the study decided which of the people in the photo would be suitable for the role of financial advisor and powerlifting champion. As expected, financial advisors appeared to be happy people to experts, and broad-faced people to weightlifters.
At the final stage, the subjects were shown only one face, but in a hundred variations obtained by slight changes in features. The portraits appeared in front of the experts in pairs, and the participants in the experiment had to decide which of the two presented more corresponded to one or another characteristic - friendliness, trustworthiness, kind-heartedness or physical strength. Based on the rating obtained, the computer modeled average faces corresponding to each of the four categories. The simulation results, in turn, were shown to a new group of subjects who had not taken part in previous experiments. "Fresh heads" almost immediately identified the portraits presented to them with the four proposed characteristics.
According to the results of the study, it can be concluded that the first impression of a person is formed on the basis of dynamic (facial expressions) and static (proportions of the face) characteristics of appearance. At the same time, there are qualities that are assessed based on a limited set of such characteristics or even on the basis of just one parameter, for example, facial proportions.
Adapted from Scientific American
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ALEX KUDRIN