• Corpus ID: 19985917

PERCEIVED INTELLIGENCE BEYOND ATTRACTIVENESS 3 Eyelid-Openness and Mouth Curvature Influence Perceived

@inproceedings{Talamas2016PERCEIVEDIB,
  title={PERCEIVED INTELLIGENCE BEYOND ATTRACTIVENESS 3 Eyelid-Openness and Mouth Curvature Influence Perceived},
  author={Sean N Talamas and Kenneth I. Mavor and John Axelsson and Tina Sundelin and David Ian Perrett},
  year={2016}
}

• Sean N Talamas, Kenneth I. Mavor, +2 authors D. Perrett
• Published 2016
• Psychology

Impression formation is profoundly influenced by facial attractiveness, but the existence of facial cues which affect judgments beyond such an ‘attractiveness halo’ may be underestimated. Since depression and tiredness adversely affect cognitive capacity, we reasoned that facial cues to mood (mouth curvature) and alertness (eyelid-openness) affect impressions of intellectual capacity. Over four studies we investigated the influence of these malleable facial cues on first impressions of intelligence. In Studies 1 and 2 we scrutinize the perceived intelligence and attractiveness ratings of images of 100 adults (aged 18-33) and 90 school-aged children (aged 517) respectively. Intelligence impression was partially mediated by attractiveness, but independent effects of eyelid-openness and subtle smiling were found that enhanced intelligence ratings independent of attractiveness. In Study 3 we digitally manipulated stimuli to have altered eyelid-openness or mouth curvature and found that each independent manipulation had an influence on perceptions of intelligence. In a final set of stimuli (Study 4) we explored changes in these cues before and after sleep restriction, to examine whether natural variations in these cues according to sleep condition can influence perceptions. In Studies 3 and 4 variations with increased eyelid-openness and mouth curvature were found to relate positively to intelligence ratings. These findings suggest potential overgeneralizations based on subtle facial cues that indicate mood and tiredness, both of which alter cognitive ability. These findings also have important implications for students who are directly influenced by expectations of ability and teachers who may form expectations based on initial perceptions of intelligence. PERCEIVED INTELLIGENCE BEYOND ATTRACTIVENESS 3 Eyelid-Openness and Mouth Curvature Influence Perceived Intelligence Beyond Attractiveness First impressions of intelligence are likely to have profound consequences in various social contexts including education and employment. Perceptions of intelligence are strongly related to attractiveness. Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972) argued that, “what is beautiful is good” (p.285). This physical attractiveness bias is a well-studied example of Thorndike’s (1920) ‘halo effect’ which leads to consistent, but not necessarily accurate, positive personality judgments of physically attractive people. The existence of facial cues which affect judgments beyond such an ‘attractiveness halo’ may be underestimated. In many studies, impressions are assumed to be based on stable characteristic of faces (masculinity, symmetry, averageness), but we argue for a focus on more dynamic and malleable facial cues in impressions of intelligence. Dynamic cues to the valence of emotions are increasingly recognized as influencing attributions but, beyond valence, further cues may derive from general level of arousal, and in particular tiredness. The Impact of Tiredness Tiredness can change over a relatively short time scale, can change on the base of behavioral choice, and has been shown to significantly reduce cognitive performance (Lim & Dinges, 2010; Pilcher & Huffcutt, 1996; Thomas et al., 2000; Walker, 2009). Facial cues of sleep deprivation have been shown to affect perceptions of attractiveness and health negatively (Axelsson et al., 2010). Sleep-deprived individuals also look sadder than non-sleep-deprived individuals, with corners of the mouth pointing downwards (Sundelin et al., 2013). An upturned mouth curvature may thus reflect alertness, but tiredness may also be reflected in the more direct facial cue of eyelid-openness; those who are sleep deprived are likely to have less eyelidopenness than those that are well rested (Sundelin et al., 2013). Additionally, overgeneralization PERCEIVED INTELLIGENCE BEYOND ATTRACTIVENESS 4 of the relationship between tiredness and impaired cognitive performance may mean that facial cues related to tiredness influence perceptions of intelligence beyond the effects of attractiveness. Overgeneralizations can be defined as a logical fallacy that occurs when a conclusion about a group is drawn from an unrepresentative (too small or narrow) sample (Walton, 1999). Zebrowitz, Fellous, Mignault, and Andreoletti (2003) argued that overgeneralizations involve accurate trait impressions from certain faces (a small unrepresentative sample) being used for other faces that are similar to the unrepresentative sample. Zebrowitz et al. (2003) extend the overgeneralization hypothesis to the anomalous face overgeneralization in which faces resembling those that are “unfit” illicit negative responses. For instance, the perception of individuals with droopy eyelids as tired and unintelligent may be an overgeneralized response based on the well-known relationship between sleep and decreased cognitive performance (Pilcher & Huffcutt, 1996; Thomas et al., 2000). Eye size effects. In exploring eyelid effects, we need to consider eye size more broadly, and in particular the relationship between eye size and the phenomenon of neoteny (the attractiveness of more ‘baby-faced’ features; Guthrie, 1970). Cunningham’s (1986) multiple motives hypothesis of physical attractiveness suggests people are attracted to individuals who display a combination of youthful (neotenous), mature, and expressive facial features. One fixed feature of neoteny that is considered attractive in both females and males is large eyes (Cunningham, Barbee, & Pike, 1990; Cunningham, 1986) For our purposes it is critical to note that the measurements used in Cunningham’s (1986) study do not differentiate between eye size and eyelid-openness, whereas that distinction is crucial to our hypotheses. Cunningham’s (1986) measure of eye size is the vertical separation of PERCEIVED INTELLIGENCE BEYOND ATTRACTIVENESS 5 eyelids relative to vertical height of the face (forehead to chin) multiplied by the average width of each eye relative to the width of the face. We propose a measure of eyelid-openness as a different cue to social judgments as well as a contribution to Cunningham’s (1986) measure of eye size. Indeed, we argue that eye size and eyelid-openness may actually elicit distinct social impressions. Neotenous features such as large eyes and foreheads, and small chins and noses, may trigger a caring response and the perception of child-like traits including naivety as part of an infant schema (Zebrowitz & Montepare, 1992), whereas eyelid-openness may convey alertness. Taken together, these arguments suggest there can be a conflict between perceived intelligence and perceived attractiveness based on these fixed structural cues to age: people with large eyes should be perceived as attractive, youthful, but potentially naïve and hence less intelligent. Since we are interested in the effects of eyelid-openness over and above the effects of fixed facial features, we adopt a new approach to measuring eyelid-openness that controls for any underlying effects of eye size. Mouth curvature. Smiling is a malleable facial cue that enhances attractiveness (Conway et al., 2008) and increases the rewarding nature of facial attractiveness (O’Doherty et al., 2003). Desired traits are more frequently ascribed to people who smile over those who don’t (Lau, 1982). While a large grin could be interpreted as a naïve gesture, we argue that a slight upturn in mouth curvature (i.e. a subtle smile) is likely to influence perceived intelligence in a number of ways. Subtle differences in individual anatomy and facial feature configuration could be reminiscent of emotional expressions. Such hints of expression in supposedly neutral faces are known to affect the attribution of personality traits (Borkenau & Liebler, 1992; Kenny, Horner, Kashy, & Chu, 1992; Kleisner, Chvatalova, & Flegr, 2014; Said, Baron, & Todorov, 2009; Sutherland et al., 2013; Zebrowitz, Kikuchi, & Fellous, 2010). Someone who is smiling is likely PERCEIVED INTELLIGENCE BEYOND ATTRACTIVENESS 6 to be perceived as more trustworthy (Oosterhof & Todorov, 2008), approachable, engaged and willing to interact (Jones, Debruine, Little, Conway, & Feinberg, 2006). Additionally, a sad mood has been shown to significantly reduce cognitive performance (Ellis, Thomas, & Rodriguez, 1984). Consequently, subtle smiling may be a malleable facial cue that has a particularly salient role in enhancing perceived intelligence independent of attractiveness. Subtle smiling, sometimes referred to as positive emotional valence, has shown to have a marked influence on impression formation more broadly. From behavioral studies and computer modeling, Oosterholf and Todorov (2008) introduced a two-dimensional model demonstrating an underlying structure for face evaluations based on two primary dimensions: valence (or trustworthiness) and dominance. That is, while many attributions (intelligence, trustworthiness, extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, etc.) can be made to faces, all of these attributions can be accounted for by just differing amounts of the two dimensions. While Todorov and colleagues (2008) worked with faces with supposedly neutral expressions, subtle shape differences in mouth curvature reminiscent of smiling and frowning exerted a profound influence on impression of trustworthiness. Findings suggest that judgments of trustworthiness stem from an overgeneralization made to emotional expressions that may signal hostile or friendly intentions, which can be related to whether the person should be avoided or approached. Specifically, the valence dimension accounted for most of the variance in a variety of trait judgments (63.3%) which were mainly related to positive judgments such as whether a face is perceived as attractive or responsible. On the other hand, the dominance dimension is more sensitive to features signaling physical strength (e.g., masculinity and maturity of age) and related to judgments such as aggressiveness and confi