Motor biases do not influence posing orientation in selfies

Do you know your best side? Awareness of lateral posing asymmetries

People tend to show the left cheek to broadly express emotions while they tend to show the right cheek to hide emotions because emotions were expressed more on the left than on the right side of the face. The present study investigated the level of awareness on the left- and right-cheek poses using the method of structural knowledge attributions. When asked to broadly express emotions for a family portrait, right-handed participants were more likely to show the left cheek than the right. On the other hand, when asked to conceal emotions to show a calm and reassuring attitude as a scientist, they were more likely to show the right cheek. After the posing session, participants selected the conscious level of their knowledge about posing from five categories: Random, intuition, familiarity, recollection, and rules. Most participants rated their knowledge as unconscious (i.e., either as random, intuition, or familiarity). The choice of the conscious level did not differ across posing orientations and posing instructions. These results suggest that although people do not have an acute awareness of their lateral posing preference, they reliably show one side of their faces to express or hide emotions.

Nonverbal communication in selfies posted on Instagram: Another look at the effect of gender on vertical camera angle

Background

Selfies are a novel social phenomenon that is gradually beginning to receive attention within the cognitive sciences. Several studies have documented biases that may be related to nonverbal communicative intentions. For instance, in selfies posted on the dating platform Tinder males but not females prefer camera views from below (Sedgewick, Flath & Elias, 2017). We re-examined this study to assess whether this bias is confined to dating selection contexts and to compare variability between individuals and between genders.

Methods

Three raters evaluated vertical camera position in 2000 selfies– 1000 by males and 1000 by females—posted in Instagram.

Results

We found that the choices of camera angle do seem to vary depending on the context under which the selfies were uploaded. On Tinder, females appear more likely to choose neutral, frontal presentations than they do on Instagram, whereas males on Tinder appear more likely to opt for camera angles from below than on Instagram.

Conclusions

This result confirms that the composition of selfies is constrained by factors affecting nonverbal communicative intentions.

Keep a Left Profile, Baby! The Left-Cradling Bias Is Associated with a Preference for Left-Facing Profiles of Human Babies

The left-cradling bias (LCB) refers to the (typically female) preference to hold an infant on the left side of one’s own body. Among the three main accounts proposed for such a phenomenon, namely the “handedness”, “heartbeat” and “hemispheric asymmetry” hypotheses, the latter has met with the greatest empirical success. Accordingly, the LCB would facilitate the communication of socio-emotional information through the right hemisphere of both the cradled and the cradling individual, and should emerge mainly in face-to-face interactions. In this regard, it should be noticed that when the infant’s body is oriented toward the cradler, the left or right side of their face is relatively more visible to left- and right-cradlers, respectively. Therefore, we hypothesized that the LCB might also be associated with a preference for left-facing profiles (i.e., those showing the left, and more expressive, hemiface/cheek) of human babies. In order to test our hypothesis, we assessed the cradling-side preferences of female participants, as well as their preference for the left- or right-facing profile of a human infant depicted in a drawing. Left-cradlers exhibited a significantly larger preference for the left-facing version of the drawing compared with right-cradlers, a finding further corroborating the right-hemisphere hypothesis.

Selfie-Takers Prefer Left Cheeks: Converging Evidence from the (Extended) selfiecity Database

According to previous reports, selfie takers in widely different cultural contexts prefer poses showing the left cheek more than the right cheek. This posing bias may be interpreted as evidence for a right-hemispheric specialization for the expression of facial emotions. However, earlier studies analyzed selfie poses as categorized by human raters, which raises methodological issues in relation to the distinction between frontal and three-quarter poses. Here, we provide converging evidence by analyzing the (extended) selfiecity database which includes automatic assessments of head rotation and of emotional expression. We confirm a culture- and sex-independent left-cheek bias and report stronger expression of negative emotions in selfies showing the left cheek. These results are generally consistent with a psychobiological account of a left cheek bias in self-portraits but reveal possible unexpected facts concerning the relation between side bias and lateralization of emotional expression.

Presenting Your Best Self(ie): The Influence of Gender on Vertical Orientation of Selfies on Tinder

When taking a self-portrait or "selfie" to display in an online dating profile, individuals may intuitively manipulate the vertical camera angle to embody how they want to be perceived by the opposite sex. Concepts from evolutionary psychology and grounded cognition suggest that this manipulation can provide cues of physical height and impressions of power to the viewer which are qualities found to influence mate-selection. We predicted that men would orient selfies more often from below to appear taller (i.e., more powerful) than the viewer, and women, from an above perspective to appear shorter (i.e., less powerful). A content analysis was conducted which coded the vertical orientation of 557 selfies from profile pictures on the popular mobile dating application, Tinder. In general, selfies were commonly used by both men (54%) and women (90%). Consistent with our predictions, a gender difference emerged; men's selfies were angled significantly more often from below, whereas women's were angled more often from above. Our findings suggest that selfies presented in a mate-attraction context are intuitively or perhaps consciously selected to adhere to ideal mate qualities. Further discussion proposes that biological or individual differences may also facilitate vertical compositions of selfies.

Consistently Showing Your Best Side? Intra-individual Consistency in #Selfie Pose Orientation

Painted and photographic portraits of others show an asymmetric bias: people favor their left cheek. Both experimental and database studies confirm that the left cheek bias extends to selfies. To date all such selfie studies have been cross-sectional; whether individual selfie-takers tend to consistently favor the same pose orientation, or switch between multiple poses, remains to be determined. The present study thus examined intra-individual consistency in selfie pose orientations. Two hundred selfie-taking participants (100 male and 100 female) were identified by searching #selfie on Instagram. The most recent 10 single-subject selfies for the each of the participants were selected and coded for type of selfie (normal; mirror) and pose orientation (left, midline, right), resulting in a sample of 2000 selfies. Results indicated that selfie-takers do tend to consistently adopt a preferred pose orientation (α = 0.72), with more participants showing an overall left cheek bias (41%) than would be expected by chance (overall right cheek bias = 31.5%; overall midline bias = 19.5%; no overall bias = 8%). Logistic regression modellng, controlling for the repeated measure of participant identity, indicated that sex did not affect pose orientation. However, selfie type proved a significant predictor when comparing left and right cheek poses, with a stronger left cheek bias for mirror than normal selfies. Overall, these novel findings indicate that selfie-takers show intra-individual consistency in pose orientation, and in addition, replicate the previously reported left cheek bias for selfies and other types of portrait, confirming that the left cheek bias also presents within individuals’ selfie corpora.