In a world preoccupied with taking the best selfie and finding the best Facebook profile picture, it is fairly well known that first impressions aren't always correct. Researchers at University of York have also found that our facial features may provide some insight to these first impressions.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), showed how faces can create a favorable or unfavorable first impression.
Researchers under Professor Andy Young and Dr. Tom Hartly analyzed photographs from the internet to develop a way to predict first impressions. They then reversed the process to create cartoon images that produced predictable first impressions in another set of participants.
"Showing how these first impressions can be captured from very variable images of faces offers insight into how our brains achieve this seemingly remarkable perceptual feat," Young said.
Researchers said this could provide insight into the instincts of photographers, photo editors and casting directors.
"In everyday life I am not conscious of the way faces and pictures of faces are influencing the way I interact with people," Hartley said, "Whether in 'real life' or online; it feels as if a person's character is something I can just sense. These results show how heavily these impressions are influenced by visual features of the face - it's quite an eye opener!"
The team took 1,000 faces from the internet described in terms of 65 different features to develop the model.
"We make first impressions of others so intuitively that it seems effortless - I think that it's fascinating that we can pin this down with scientific models," said PhD student Clare Sutherland, a member of the research team. "I'm now looking at how these first impressions might change depending on different cultural or gender groups of perceivers or faces. "
Previous research has shown that first impressions can be boiled down to three dimensions: approachability, dominance and youthful-attractiveness. Additionally, first impressions also lead to judgments of a person's character.
"it might be problematic if we're forming these kinds of judgments based on these rather fleeting impressions," Hartley said in an interview with BBC. "Particularly in today's world where we only might see on picture of a face, on social media, and have to form our impressions based on that."
