Sofer, Dotsch, Wigboldus + Todorov TYPICAL FACE + perceived TRUST

Question 1

What is the norm-based face-space model (Valentine 1991) and why is the typical face important in this?

Answer 1

mechanism used to efficiently process faces/ information

• typical face important for face recognition
• serves as a standard against which all faces are evaluated
• Brain only needs to lean the statistical distribution of configurations to extract typicality (Said, Dotsch, + Todorov, 2010)

Question 2

At what age are children able to use the norm-based face-space model?

Answer 2

Tanaka, Meixner + Kantner 2011

age of 3

Question 3

Although we are not sure if face typicality has a role in judgement what research are there showing potential association with attractiveness?

Answer 3

1. Langlois + Roggman 1990
   § Digital avg of 32 faces perceived as more attractive vs subset faces + almost all the individual constituent faces
   = average face is the most attractive face
2. DeBruine et al, 2007
   Judgement of attractiveness increased from the unattractive face to the typical face + to increase as faces became more like the attractive face
3. Said + Todorov, 2011
   § The most attractive faces were close to the typical face on some dimensions, but far from the typical face on others

Question 4

What study challenges the association of the typical face with attractiveness?

Answer 4

Perrett et al, 1994 - conflicting findings
§ Set of 60 female typical faces judged as less attractive VS
- the avg of the 15 most attractive faces from the same set

Question 5

What is the theory behind perceived trustworthiness is influenced by face typicality?

Answer 5

Typicality predicts…
○ Familiarity of object from non-face categories
§ Familiarity enhances positive affect toward objects
○ Similarly for faces too - people found typical faces to be more familiar vs atypical faces (Bartlett et al, 1984)

Question 6

What evidence is there suggesting perceived trustworthiness is influenced by face typicality?

Answer 6

• Zebrowitz, Bronstad + Lee, 2007
○ Familiar faces more liked + judged safer (more trustworthy) vs unfamiliar faces
• Todorov, Olivola, Dotsch + Mende-Siedlecki
○ Perceived trustworthiness decreases as distance of computer generated faces from the typical increased even though the dimension were kept within trustworthiness dimension

Question 7

What did Galton 1983 say about the typical face and different nations?

Answer 7

• Every nation has there own ‘typical’ face = ideal face once you collect enough data
• They are more consensually familiar face in a population = important standard for the evaluation of novel faces

Question 8

What were the 3 experiments investigating?

Answer 8

E1: are typical faces judged as trustworthy? are typical faces judged as attractive?
E2: greater DFT, still attractive? what about trustworthiness?
E3: Double checking findings of E1+E2

Question 9

What happened in E1?

Answer 9

1. 11 faces created by merging faces of attractive females
2. Ppt asked to rate on either trustworthiness or attractiveness on 9-point scale
   a. Only female judges (ppt) used to remove cross-gender judgements
   i. because men + women perceive feminized faces differentially (Rhodes, Hickford + Jeffery, 2000)

Question 10

What were the findings of E1?

Answer 10

= trustworthiness judgements - positive trend as the faces became more like the typical face
= attractiveness judgements - negative trend

Question 11

What happened in E2?

Answer 11

1. Used faces with a wider range of typicality
2. To increase the dissociation between perception of trustworthiness + perception of attractiveness they merged faces of ‘attractive’ people = increase its perceived atypicality as well
3. Asked ppt to judge on either trustworthiness or attractiveness

Question 12

What were the findings of E2?

Answer 12

= attractiveness judgements kept increasing along the continuum past the typical face toward the attractive composite
○ Perceived attractiveness reached its max at a DFT of 150% then started to decline
○ Linear trend where the typical face was simply another point on the attractiveness continuum
- Trustworthiness + attractiveness judgements followed different trends as a function of DFT (since trustworthiness increased with typicality of the face)

Question 13

What could be an alternative explanation for the findings of E1 + E2?

Answer 13

1. artefact
   - other factors influencing judgements of attractiveness + trustworthiness
   E2: combination of attractive ppl = atypical maybe why they found it attractive
2. asymertry between attractive and not attractive
   For attractiveness, they were transformed towards an idea of attractiveness where as the other end was not

Question 14

What happened in E3?

Answer 14

1. Unattractive + typical face

2. Asked to judge face on either trustworthiness or attractiveness

Question 15

What did they find in E3?

Answer 15

= trustworthiness judgements peaked close to the typical face
= attractiveness judgements kept increasing as the faces became closer to the attractive composite

Question 16

What were the conclusions of the experiments?

Answer 16

1. face typicality is an important determinant of perceived trustworthiness but not of attractiveness
2. perceived trustworthiness depends only on the face’s distance from the typical face, regardless of direction
3. perceived attractiveness depends on both distance and direction

Question 17

What are some other factors, other than DFT (distance from typical) that can influence judgements of trustworthiness?

Answer 17

• Oosterhof + Todorov, 2008
  ○ Emotional expressions
  = emotionally neutral faces = judged untrustworthy if they showed subtle cues of anger
  ○ Feminine + masculine facial cues
• judges trustworthy if subtle cue of happiness
• Criticised as showing a misattribution of emotional expression signalling approach + avoidance behaviours to stable personality dispositions
  Their average face was at the midpoint of the trustworthiness dimension