Modeling first impressions ... II

My earlier articles1, 2 reported to you that western researches3, 4 have concluded that “First impressions of social traits, such as trustworthiness or dominance, are reliably perceived in faces” and first impression can be formed in less than a second. Today, I am going to report to you a few more details of the research3.

The research3 assign specific points and numbers on a face as in Fig 1:

Fig 1

These points are then used to identify attributes (e.g. eyebrow height, eyebrow width and eyebrow area) derived from the face (examples see Table 1):

Table 1

For example, attribute #12, iris area is the area enclosed by points 3:10 i.e. the area of the iris.

The research went forward and reported that:

"the importance of the mouth to approachability (平易接近度), the eyes to youthful-attractiveness (年輕－吸引力), and the masculine face shape and change in skin tone for dominance (支配性) are all evident."

A sample (Fig. 2) of synthesized images was used to validate the predicted trait impressions in a group of naive human raters.

Fig 2

Synthesized face-like images illustrating the changes in facial features that typify each of the three social trait dimensions. The “low” end of each dimension is shown at the left end of each row and the “high” end is at the right.

On approachability:

"The five features that are most strongly positively correlated with the approachability dimension are all linked to the mouth and mouth shape (feature #25 mouth area, #26 mouth height, #29 mouth width, #30 mouth gap, #32 bottom lip curve), and this is consistent with Oosterhof and Todorov’s (17) observation that a smiling expression is a key component of an impression of approachability."

On youthful-attractiveness :

"Four of the five features that are most strongly positively correlated with the youthful-attractiveness dimension relate to the eyes (feature #11 eye area, #12 iris area, #13 eye height, #14 eye width), in line with Zebrowitz et al.’s (16) views linking relatively large eyes to a youthful appearance."

"Increased youthful-attractiveness is also apparently linked to a more “feminized” face shape in Fig. 3. This result was in fact also apparent in Table 1, where the “jaw height” feature (no. 21 in Table 1) was the among the “top 5” positive correlations with youthful-attractiveness (together with the four eye-related features we listed previously), and the other jawline features (22–24) were all in the “top 11.”

On dominance:

"In Oosterhof and Todorov’s (17) model the dominance dimension is linked to stereotypically masculine appearance, and here we find it to be most closely correlated with structural features linked to masculine face shape (feature #8 eyebrow height, #35 cheek gradient, #36 eye gradient) and to color and texture differences that may also relate to masculinity (28) or a healthy or tanned overall appearance (feature #49 skin saturation, #62 skin value variation)."

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當然，這些结論與中國面相也有類同。

所謂＂禍從口出，病從口入＂，由此可知口與語言能力，誠信，福德（口福）及至物欲與情感有關，故此好的口自然給人有平易近人的感覺。

另一方面，喜歡微笑的人故然给人和譪可親的感覺，故口與＂平易近人度＂(Approachability) 有相關關係。

從現代審美的确角度來看，大眼晴的吸引力較大，因此眼對於＂年輕－吸引力＂(Youthful-Attractiveness) 的相關性有最大的關連性。

中國面相稱眼為監察宫。眼，故然用來觀察，學習。因此，眼可以顯示一個人的智慧和判斷力。有智慧，有判斷力的人自然也有吸引力。而且大而圓眼的人較熱情，喜歡說話交際，對新鮮的人與事物較有興趣。這些也吸引力的一部份。

上文也提到較女性化（或者是柔性化）的面孔較受歡迎。相反來說，面孔太骨感，或者腮骨太露給人一種剛強甚至粗暴的感覺？。這樣是否有吸引力則是見人見智。

至于在支配性 (Dominance) 方面，上文提及是與眼眉的粗幼及傾斜度，顴骨，男性化（粗）及膚色有關。粗眉，上升眉，顴骨凸起兼骨感，孔武有力，及陽光的确膚色都會給人一種男性化，有攻撃性感覺。

在中國面相，眉是兄弟宫，亦代表個人健康及胆量。眉粗而濃的人大胆，勇猛。顴骨太骨感而露的話，喜歡話事，操控人與事。膚色，除了顯示健康之外，亦顯示主動性。膚色過於深黑，則有些操勞之象。

由此可知，這些西方近期的研究，得出的结論，基本上都能與中國面相不謀而合，而且中國面相能很好地解釋得到其研究结論背後的原因。

從另一角度看，這些西方硏究正好再証實中國面相的準確性和可靠性。因此我想，大家作為中國人怎樣可以放棄我們的袓先經過數千年觀察與實踐的成果而不顧？

我希望大家好好學中國面相。

References:

1 A world of face masks 臉譜世界

2 Love at first sight and 面相

3 Modeling first impressions from highly variable facial images. http://www.pnas.org/content/111/32/E3353.full.pdf

4 Oosterhof NN, Todorov A (2008) The functional basis of face evaluation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105(32):11087–11092.

Originally posted at http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_532b25230102x4p1.html

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