The Quality of Everyday Eye Contact in Williams Syndrome: Insights From Cross-Syndrome Comparisons.

Past research shows that individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) have heightened and prolonged eye contact. Using parent report measures, we examined not only the presence of eye contact but also its qualitative features. Study 1 included individuals with WS (n = 22, ages 6.0-36.3). Study 2 included children with different neurodevelopmental (ND) conditions (WS, autism spectrum condition, fragile X syndrome, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) and children with neurotypical development (NT; n = 262, ages 4.0-17.11). Unusual eye contact features, including staring, were found in approximately half of the WS samples. However, other features such as brief glances were frequently found in WS and in all ND conditions, but not NT. Future research in ND conditions should focus on qualitative as well as quantitative features of eye contact.

Emotion lateralization in a graduated emotional chimeric face task: An online study.

OBJECTIVE: To resolve inconsistencies in the literature regarding the dominance of the right cerebral hemisphere (RH) in emotional face perception, specifically investigating the role of the intensity of emotional expressions, different emotions, and conscious perception. METHOD: The study used an online version of the well-established emotional chimeric face task (ECFT) in which participants judged which side of a chimeric face stimulus was more emotional. We tested the laterality bias in the ECFT across six basic emotions and experimentally modified the intensity of the emotional facial expression from neutral to fully emotional expressions, in incremental steps of 20%. RESULTS: The results showed an overall left hemiface bias across all emotions, supporting the RH hypothesis of emotional lateralization. However, the left hemiface bias decreased with decreasing intensity of the emotional facial expression. CONCLUSIONS: The results provide further support for the RH hypothesis and suggest that the RH dominance in emotional face perception may be affected by task difficulty and visual perception strategy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Television consumption drives perceptions of female body attractiveness in a population undergoing technological transition.

Perceptions of physical attractiveness vary across cultural groups, particularly for female body size and shape. It has been hypothesized that visual media propagates Western "thin ideals." However, because cross-cultural studies typically consider groups highly differentiated on a number of factors, identifying the causal factors has thus far been impossible. In the present research, we conducted "naturalistic" and controlled experiments to test the influence of media access on female body ideals in a remote region of Nicaragua by sampling from villages with and without regular TV access. We found that greater TV consumption remained a significant predictor of preferences for slimmer, curvier female figures after controlling for a range of other factors in an ethnically balanced sample of 299 individuals (150 female, aged 15-79) across 7 villages. Within-individual analyses in 1 village over 3 years also showed an association between increased TV consumption and preferences for slimmer figures among some participants. Finally, an experimental study in 2 low-media locations demonstrates that exposure to media images of fashion models can directly impact participants' body size ideals. We provide the first converging cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental evidence from field-based research, that media exposure can drive changes in perceptions of female attractiveness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Hemispheric asymmetries in categorical facial expression perception.

Although many sensory phenomena vary continuously, humans tend to divide them into discrete categories with facial expressions being divided into categories such as happy, sad, anger, and fear. A critical effect of category use is categorical perception: same sized physical differences are better perceived if the difference occurs between two categories rather than within the same category. Here we investigate the lateralization of categorical perception of facial expressions. Categorical perception of facial expressions may be lateralized to the right hemisphere due to the intimacy of basic, possibly universal and innate, prototypical facial expression categories and face processing which is predominantly lateralized to the right hemisphere. Alternatively, facial expression categories may be a linguistic phenomenon and thus predominantly involve the left hemisphere. A visual half-field paradigm was used to assess categorical perception of morphed facial expressions running between happy-sad, and anger-fear. Across two experiments, the lateralization of categorical perception was found to be contingent upon previous exposure. Better between-than within-category discrimination of facial expressions was found in both visual half-fields when participants had previously been exposed to facial expression categories; but for naïve participants, categorical perception was restricted to the right visual hemifield, corresponding to the left cerebral hemisphere. Facial expressions presented to the right hemisphere are therefore not necessarily encoded in terms of their emotional expression category and such category-based encoding, when it does occur, may be due to the left hemisphere and so is likely to be subject to biases related to language. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Nutritional status and the influence of TV consumption on female body size ideals in populations recently exposed to the media.

Television consumption influences perceptions of attractive female body size. However, cross-cultural research examining media influence on body ideals is typically confounded by differences in the availability of reliable and diverse foodstuffs. 112 participants were recruited from 3 Nicaraguan villages that differed in television consumption and nutritional status, such that the contribution of both factors could be revealed. Participants completed a female figure preference task, reported their television consumption, and responded to several measures assessing nutritional status. Communities with higher television consumption and/or higher nutritional status preferred thinner female bodies than communities with lower television consumption and/or lower nutritional status. Bayesian mixed models estimated the plausible range of effects for television consumption, nutritional status, and other relevant variables on individual preferences. The model explained all meaningful differences between our low-nutrition villages, and television consumption, after sex, was the most likely of these predictors to contribute to variation in preferences (probability mass >95% when modelling only variables with zero-order associations with preferences, but only 90% when modelling all possible predictors). In contrast, we found no likely link with nutritional status. We thus found evidence that where media access and nutritional status are confounded, media is the more likely predictor of body ideals.

Male Facial Appearance and Offspring Mortality in Two Traditional Societies.

It has been hypothesised that facial traits such as masculinity and a healthy appearance may indicate heritable qualities in males (e.g. immunocompetence) and that, consequently, female preferences for such traits may function to increase offspring viability and health. However, the putative link between paternal facial features and offspring health has not previously been tested empirically in humans. Here we present data from two traditional societies with little or no access to modern medicine and family planning technologies. Data on offspring number and offspring survival were analysed for the Agta of the Philippines and the Maya of Belize, and archive facial photographs were assessed by observers for attractiveness and masculinity. While there was no association between attractiveness and offspring survival in either population, a quadratic relationship was observed between masculinity and offspring survival in both populations, such that intermediate levels of masculinity were associated with the lowest offspring mortality, with both high and low levels of masculinity being associated with increased mortality. Neither attractiveness nor masculinity were related to fertility (offspring number) in either population. We consider how these data may or may not reconcile with current theories of female preferences for masculinity in male faces and argue that further research and replication in other traditional societies should be a key priority for the field.

Television exposure predicts body size ideals in rural Nicaragua.

Internalization of a thin ideal has been posited as a key risk factor in the development of pathological eating attitudes. Cross-culturally, studies have found a preference for heavier bodies in populations with reduced access to visual media compared to Western populations. As yet, however, there has been little attempt to control for confounding variables in order to isolate the effects of media exposure from other cultural and ecological factors. Here, we examined preferences for female body size in relation to television consumption in Nicaraguan men and women, while controlling for the potential confounding effects of other aspects of Westernization and hunger. We included an urban sample, a sample from a village with established television access, and a sample from a nearby village with very limited television access. The highest BMI preferences were found in the village with least media access, while the lowest BMI preferences were found in the urban sample. Data from the rural sample with established television access were intermediate between the two. Amongst rural women in particular, greater television consumption was a stronger predictor of body weight preferences than acculturation, education, hunger, or income. We also found some evidence for television consumption increasing the likelihood of women seeking to lose weight, possibly via body shape preferences. Overall, these results strongly implicate television access in establishing risk factors for body image disturbances in populations newly gaining access to Western media.

A leftward bias however you look at it: Revisiting the emotional chimeric face task as a tool for measuring emotion lateralization.

Left hemiface biases observed within the Emotional Chimeric Face Task (ECFT) support emotional face perception models whereby all expressions are preferentially processed by the right hemisphere. However, previous research using this task has not considered that the visible midline between hemifaces might engage atypical facial emotion processing strategies in upright or inverted conditions, nor controlled for left visual field (thus right hemispheric) visuospatial attention biases. This study used novel emotional chimeric faces (blended at the midline) to examine laterality biases for all basic emotions. Left hemiface biases were demonstrated across all emotional expressions and were reduced, but not reversed, for inverted faces. The ECFT bias in upright faces was significantly increased in participants with a large attention bias. These results support the theory that left hemiface biases reflect a genuine bias in emotional face processing, and this bias can interact with attention processes similarly localized in the right hemisphere.

Red clothing increases perceived dominance, aggression and anger.

The presence and intensity of red coloration correlate with male dominance and testosterone in a variety of animal species, and even artificial red stimuli can influence dominance interactions. In humans, red stimuli are perceived as more threatening and dominant than other colours, and wearing red increases the probability of winning sporting contests. We investigated whether red clothing biases the perception of aggression and dominance outside of competitive settings, and whether red influences decoding of emotional expressions. Participants rated digitally manipulated images of men for aggression and dominance and categorized the emotional state of these stimuli. Men were rated as more aggressive and more dominant when presented in red than when presented in either blue or grey. The effect on perceived aggression was found for male and female raters, but only male raters were sensitive to red as a signal of dominance. In a categorization test, images were significantly more often categorized as 'angry' when presented in the red condition, demonstrating that colour stimuli affect perceptions of emotions. This suggests that the colour red may be a cue used to predict propensity for dominance and aggression in human males.

Age effects on emotion recognition in facial displays: from 20 to 89 years of age.

UNLABELLED: BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: An emotion recognition task that morphs emotional facial expressions from an initial neutral expression to distinct increments of the full emotional expression was administered to 482 individuals, 20 to 89 years of age. METHODS: Participants assessed six basic emotions at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of the full facial expression. RESULTS: Participants in the three oldest age groups (60s, 70s, and 80s) demonstrated decreased performance for the recognition of the fear, anger, and sad emotions. Increased age was associated with increased recognition rates for the disgust expression, whereas no age effect was detected for the happy and surprise expressions. Covariate analyses revealed age effects were reduced by processing speed, but were unaffected by decision-making ability. The effects of age on individual emotions and levels of presentation are discussed. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that age has the greatest impact on the recognition of the sad emotion and the greatest age effect at the 50% level of presentation across the adult life span.

Asymmetry in face processing during childhood measured with chimeric faces.

Studies with adults have found a left bias in their perception of faces, which suggests a right hemisphere specialisation in processing facial information. Hemispheric asymmetry is observed during the first year of life but it is still unclear at what age such specialisation becomes adult-like during the prolonged period of face-processing development through childhood. In the present study we investigated the development of children's perceptions of gender and emotion using chimeric faces. Our results demonstrate that a right hemisphere bias, similar to that found in adults, is observed from 5 years of age. The results are discussed within a framework of developmental studies and we conclude that although children may be less efficient than adults at encoding faces, their basic manner of encoding is not fundamentally different from that of adults.

The effect of frequency of cerebral palsy treatment: a matched-pair pilot study.

The feasibility and effectiveness of a year-long integrated rehabilitation program for young children (less than 6 years old) with cerebral palsy was evaluated, and efficacy of different treatment schedules was compared. A sample of 40 children (20 male; mean age, 3 years +/-1.22) took part: 20 presented with tetraparesis, 12 with diparesis, and 8 with hemiparesis. Participants' motor abilities were classified according to the Gross Motor Function Measure classification system at baseline and after 1 year of treatment. For half of the participants, treatment consisted of continuous integrated intervention twice a week; for the other half, treatment was the 3i intervention (Intermittent, Intensive, Integrated), in which a month of intensive, twice-a-day treatment was followed by a continuous, twice-a-week phase, lasting 5 months. Overall, there was an improvement in gross motor function, with 37% of children improving and no children showing lowered function. Neither baseline general cognitive abilities nor age had a significant effect on the level of improvement, although initial gross motor function did. Children undergoing the intensive intermittent intervention showed the greatest motor function improvement. Results support the effectiveness of the integrated intervention and of periods of higher frequency intervention in young children.

Preferences for symmetry in faces change across the menstrual cycle.

Symmetry in human male faces may be a cue to heritable fitness benefits and is found attractive. Preferences for facial masculinity, another proposed marker of genetic quality, have been found to vary in ways that may maximise evolutionary relevant benefits and masculinity is found to be of increased attractiveness at peak fertility across the menstrual cycle. Here we show that women prefer more symmetric faces at peak fertility (Study 1) and that such shifting preferences may be potentially strategic preferences as we found them to occur only for judgements concerning short-term relations and when women already had a partner (Study 2). Such preferences potentially indicate a strategy that maximises the quality of extra-pair/short-term partners or a quality dependent response to hormones. Such strategic preferences for symmetry may support the role of symmetry in signalling potential good-gene benefits.

Q-cgi: new techniques to assess variation in perception applied to facial attractiveness.

We present novel methods for assessing variation in the perception of subjective cues based on a fusion of Q-methodology with computer graphics techniques. Participants first Q-sort face stimuli based upon a subjective quality; a randomization-based statistic is then calculated to test whether groups of participants differ in their perception. Computer graphics are then used to extract and illustrate the differences in the manner which participants sorted so that the differences can be quantified. As a demonstration, the technique is applied to investigate the effects of prospective relationship duration and of sexual restrictiveness on the characteristics which participants find attractive in photographs of opposite-sex faces. Results show that in a naturally varying set of faces, female participants prefer facial cues related to masculinity for short-term relationships, whereas characteristics related to positive personality attributes are preferred for long-term relationships. For short-term relationships, male participants appear to prefer more feminine, youthful faces. Preferences of individuals with less restricted sexual strategy paralleled short-term preferences in that more feminine female faces and more masculine male faces were preferred.

Is everybody always my friend? Perception of approachability in Williams syndrome.

Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) are well known for their friendly behaviour and tendency to approach strangers indiscriminately as if everybody were their friend. This tendency to approach strangers is mirrored in their ratings of unfamiliar face stimuli. Here we examined their perception of unfamiliar expressive faces and found that individuals with WS do not always see faces as being highly approachable. Happy faces were rated as more approachable by individuals with WS than by controls. In contrast, the other less approachable face stimuli were rated lower on approachability by individuals with WS than by controls. Thus, it appears that although individuals with WS will discriminate people in terms of approachability, they have difficulty inhibiting their strong compulsion towards social interaction. The form of this strong pro-social compulsion is discussed both in terms of friendliness and in terms of the heightened salience of social stimuli (social stimulus attraction).

Asymmetric interference between sex and emotion in face perception.

Previous research with speeded-response interference tasks modeled on the Garner paradigm has demonstrated that task-irrelevant variations in either emotional expression or facial speech do not interfere with identity judgments, but irrelevant variations in identity do interfere with expression and facial speech judgments. Sex, like identity, is a relatively invariant aspect of faces. Drawing on a recent model of face processing according to which invariant and changeable aspects of faces are represented in separate neurological systems, we predicted asymmetric interference between sex and emotion classification. The results of Experiment 1, in which the Garner paradigm was employed, confirmed this prediction: Emotion classifications were influenced by the sex of the faces, but sex classifications remained relatively unaffected by facial expression. A second experiment, in which the difficulty of the tasks was equated, corroborated these findings, indicating that differences in processing speed cannot account for the asymmetric relationship between facial emotion and sex processing. A third experiment revealed the same pattern of asymmetric interference through the use of a variant of the Simon paradigm. To the extent that Garner interference and Simon interference indicate interactions at perceptual and response-selection stages of processing, respectively, a challenge for face processing models is to show how the same asymmetric pattern of interference could occur at these different stages. The implications of these findings for the functional independence of the different components of face processing are discussed.

When facial attractiveness is only skin deep.

Whilst the relationship between aspects of facial shape and attractiveness has been extensively studied, few studies have investigated which characteristics of the surface of faces positively influence attractiveness judgments. As many researchers have proposed a link between attractiveness and traits that appear healthy, apparent health of facial skin might be a property of the surface of faces that positively influences attractiveness judgments. In experiment 1 we tested for a positive correlation between ratings of the apparent health of small skin patches (extracted from the left and right cheeks of digital face images) and ratings of the attractiveness of male faces. By using computer-graphics faces, in experiment 2 we aimed to establish if apparent health of skin influences male facial attractiveness independently of shape information. Results suggest that apparent health of facial skin is correlated both with ratings of male facial attractiveness (experiment 1) and with being a visual cue for judgments of the attractiveness of male faces (experiment 2). These findings underline the importance of controlling for the influence of visible skin condition in studies of facial attractiveness and are consistent with the proposal that attractive physical traits are those that positively influence others' perceptions of an individual's health.

Concordant preferences for opposite-sex signals? Human pheromones and facial characteristics.

We have investigated whether preferences for masculine and feminine characteristics are correlated across two modalities, olfaction and vision. In study 1, subjects rated the pleasantness of putative male (4,16-androstadien-3-one; 5alpha-androst-16-en-3-one) and female (1,3,5 (10),16-estratetraen-3-ol) pheromones, and chose the most attractive face shape from a masculine-feminine continuum for a long- and a short-term relationship. Study 2 replicated study 1 and further explored the effects of relationship context on pheromone ratings. For long-term relationships, women's preferences for masculine face shapes correlated with ratings of 4,16-androstadien-3-one and men's preferences for feminine face shapes correlated with ratings of 1,3,5(10),16-estratetraen-3-ol. These studies link sex-specific preferences for putative human sex pheromones and sexually dimorphic facial characteristics. Our findings suggest that putative sex pheromones and sexually dimorphic facial characteristics convey common information about the quality of potential mates.

Smelling human sex hormone-like compounds affects face gender judgment of men.

Although strong cross-sensory interactions between visual, tactile and auditory modalities have already been shown, we know little about how chemosensory information affects processing in other sensory modalities. We studied whether smelling gender-specific odorous sex hormone-like steroids: 5-alpha-androgenst-16-en-3-one (androgen) or oestra-1, 3, 5 (10), 16-tetraen-3-ol (estrogen) can bias face gender discrimination. We found that, as a result of inhalation of androgen, men perceive faces to be more masculine as compared to when they are exposed to estrogen. Our results provide evidence for specific cross-sensory effects of the gender-specific chemosensory cues on the categorization of visual face gender.

Perceptual judgements of others' tasting experiences: are they enjoying their food?

Motivated by previous work suggesting that infants make stereotypic facial reactions to different tastes, we assessed communicative signals that might enable an adult to interpret the strength, taste, and hedonic value of a liquid flavour another adult is consuming. Four subjects (tasters) were overtly videoed consuming drinks that varied in strength (low, medium, and high concentrations), taste (sweet, sour, bitter, and salty), and hedonic value (taster-rated enjoyment). 26 observers assessed the strength, taste, and taster's enjoyment of the drink from video clips of the tasters. Observers perceived the hedonic value of the drinks to the taster and the drinks' strength based on the tasters' reactions but were generally poor at assessing the specific taste of the drink. For all tastes except the bitter ones, observers might have based their judgements of taste on how much the taster appeared to enjoy the drink. These findings are discussed in terms of communication of food's value.