1
|
Kramer RSS, Ritchie KL, Flack TR, Mireku MO, Jones AL. The psychometrics of rating facial attractiveness using different response scales. Perception 2024:3010066241256221. [PMID: 38778780 DOI: 10.1177/03010066241256221] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/25/2024]
Abstract
Perceiving facial attractiveness is an important behaviour across psychological science due to these judgments having real-world consequences. However, there is little consensus on the measurement of this behaviour, and practices differ widely. Research typically asks participants to provide ratings of attractiveness across a multitude of different response scales, with little consideration of the psychometric properties of these scales. Here, we make psychometric comparisons across nine different response scales. Specifically, we analysed the psychometric properties of a binary response, a 0-100 scale, a visual analogue scale, and a set of Likert scales (1-3, 1-5, 1-7, 1-8, 1-9, 1-10) as tools to measure attractiveness, calculating a range of commonly used statistics for each. While certain properties suggested researchers might choose to favour the 1-5, 1-7 and 1-8 scales, we generally found little evidence of an advantage for one scale over any other. Taken together, our investigation provides consideration of currently used techniques for measuring facial attractiveness and makes recommendations for researchers in this field.
Collapse
|
2
|
Turbett K, Jeffery L, Bell J, Digges A, Zheng Y, Hsiao J, Palermo R. Serial dependence of facial identity for own- and other-race faces. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 2021; 75:1711-1726. [PMID: 34714182 DOI: 10.1177/17470218211059430] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
It is well established that individuals are better at recognising faces of their own-race compared with other-races; however, there is ongoing debate regarding the perceptual mechanisms that may be involved and therefore sensitive to face-race. Here, we ask whether serial dependence of facial identity, a bias where the perception of a face's identity is biased towards a previously presented face, shows an other-race effect. Serial dependence is associated with face recognition ability and appears to operate on high-level, face-selective representations, like other candidate mechanisms (e.g., holistic processing). We therefore expected to find an other-race effect for serial dependence for our Caucasian and Asian participants. While participants showed robust effects of serial dependence for all faces, only Caucasian participants showed stronger serial dependence for own-race faces. Intriguingly, we found that individual variation in own-race, but not other-race, serial dependence was significantly associated with face recognition abilities. Preliminary evidence also suggested that other-race contact is associated with other-race serial dependence. In conclusion, though we did not find an overall difference in serial dependence for own- versus other-race faces in both participant groups, our results highlight that this bias may be functionally different for own- versus other-race faces and sensitive to racial experience.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Kaitlyn Turbett
- School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
| | - Linda Jeffery
- School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
| | - Jason Bell
- School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
| | - Andrew Digges
- School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
| | - Yueyuan Zheng
- School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
| | - Janet Hsiao
- School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
| | - Romina Palermo
- School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Kramer RSS, Pustelnik LR. Sequential effects in facial attractiveness judgments: Separating perceptual and response biases. VISUAL COGNITION 2021. [DOI: 10.1080/13506285.2021.1995558] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
|
4
|
Awad D, Clifford CWG, White D, Mareschal I. Asymmetric contextual effects in age perception. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2020; 7:200936. [PMID: 33489259 PMCID: PMC7813243 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.200936] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/26/2020] [Accepted: 11/05/2020] [Indexed: 05/31/2023]
Abstract
Perception is context dependent. For example, the perceived orientation of a bar changes depending on the presence of oriented bars around it. Contextual effects have also been demonstrated for more complex judgements, such as facial attractiveness or expression, although it remains unclear how these contextual facial effects depend on the types of faces surrounding the target face. To examine this, we measured the perceived age (a quantifiable measure) of a target face in the presence of differently aged faces in the surround. Using a unique database of standardized passport photos, participants were asked to estimate the age of a target face which was viewed either on its own or surrounded by two different identity flanker faces. The flanker faces were either both younger or both older than the target face, with different age offsets between flankers and targets of ±5, ±10, ±15, ±20 years. We find that when a target face is surrounded by younger faces, it systematically appears younger than when viewed on its own, and when it is surrounded by older faces, it systematically appears older than when viewed on its own. Surprisingly, we find that the magnitude of the flanker effects on perceived age of the target is asymmetric with younger flankers having a greater influence than older flankers, a result that may reflect the participants' own-age bias, since all participants were young. This result holds irrespective of gender or race of the faces and is consistent with averaging.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Deema Awad
- Department of Biological and Experimental Psychology, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, UK
| | | | - David White
- The School of Psychology, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia
| | - Isabelle Mareschal
- Department of Biological and Experimental Psychology, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, UK
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Ho PK, Newell FN. Changes in perceptual category affects serial dependence in judgements of attractiveness. VISUAL COGNITION 2020. [DOI: 10.1080/13506285.2020.1841867] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Pik Ki Ho
- School of Psychology and Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
| | - Fiona N. Newell
- School of Psychology and Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
| |
Collapse
|
6
|
Abstract
First impressions from faces emerge quickly and shape subsequent behaviour. Given that different pictures of the same face evoke different impressions, we asked whether presentation order affects the overall impression of the person. In three experiments, we presented naturally varying photos of a person's face in ascending (low-to-high) or descending (high-to-low) order of attractiveness. We found that attractiveness ratings for a subsequent test item were higher for the descending condition than for the ascending condition (Experiment 1), consistent with anchoring effects. In Experiment 2, we ruled out contrast between the final item and the test item as the cause of the effect by demonstrating anchoring within the sequence itself. In Experiment 3, we found that order of image presentation also affected dating decisions. Our findings demonstrate that first impressions from faces depend not only on visual information but also on the order in which that information is received. We suggest that models of impression formation and learning of individual faces could be improved by considering temporal order of encounters.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Juergen Goller
- Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, University of Vienna, Austria
| | - Helmut Leder
- Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods, University of Vienna, Austria
| | | | - Rob Jenkins
- Department of Psychology, University of York, UK
| |
Collapse
|
7
|
Huang J, He X, Ma X, Ren Y, Zhao T, Zeng X, Li H, Chen Y. Sequential biases on subjective judgments: Evidence from face attractiveness and ringtone agreeableness judgment. PLoS One 2018; 13:e0198723. [PMID: 29889850 PMCID: PMC5995378 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0198723] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/08/2017] [Accepted: 05/24/2018] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
When people make decisions about sequentially presented items in psychophysical experiments, their decisions are always biased by their preceding decisions and the preceding items, either by assimilation (shift towards the decision or item) or contrast (shift away from the decision or item). Such sequential biases also occur in naturalistic and real-world judgments such as facial attractiveness judgments. In this article, we aimed to cast light on the causes of these sequential biases. We first found significant assimilative and contrastive effects in a visual face attractiveness judgment task and an auditory ringtone agreeableness judgment task, indicating that sequential effects are not limited to the visual modality. We then found that the provision of trial-by-trial feedback of the preceding stimulus value eliminated the contrastive effect, but only weakened the assimilative effect. When participants orally reported their judgments rather than indicated them via a keyboard button press, we found a significant diminished assimilative effect, suggesting that motor response repetition strengthened the assimilation bias. Finally, we found that when visual and auditory stimuli were alternated, there was no longer a contrastive effect from the immediately previous trial, but there was an assimilative effect both from the previous trial (cross-modal) and the 2-back trial (same stimulus modality). These findings suggested that the contrastive effect results from perceptual processing, while the assimilative effect results from anchoring of the previous judgment and is strengthened by response repetition and numerical priming.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Jianrui Huang
- Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Xianyou He
- Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
- * E-mail:
| | - Xiaojin Ma
- Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Yian Ren
- Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Tingting Zhao
- Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Xin Zeng
- Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Han Li
- Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Yiheng Chen
- Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| |
Collapse
|
8
|
Chang S, Kim CY, Cho YS. Sequential effects in preference decision: Prior preference assimilates current preference. PLoS One 2017; 12:e0182442. [PMID: 28817619 PMCID: PMC5560581 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0182442] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/28/2016] [Accepted: 07/18/2017] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
An important factor affecting preference formation is the context in which that preference decision takes place. The current research examined whether one’s preference formed for a previously presented stimulus influences the processing of a subsequent preference decision, henceforth referred to as the preference sequence effect. Using a novel sequential rating/judgment paradigm, the present study demonstrated the presence of a preference sequence effect using artistic photographs and face stimuli: A neutral stimulus was preferred more following a preferable stimulus than a less preferable stimulus. Furthermore, a similar trend was found even when the potential influence of response bias was controlled. These results suggest that an assimilative sequential effect exists even when sequential judgments are made solely based on one’s subjective feeling; preference formed for a preceding stimulus modulates preference for a subsequent stimulus. This implies the need for a consideration of trial sequence as a factor creating a psychological context affecting the subsequent preference decisions.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Seah Chang
- Department of Psychology, Korea University, Seoul, Korea
| | - Chai-Youn Kim
- Department of Psychology, Korea University, Seoul, Korea
| | - Yang Seok Cho
- Department of Psychology, Korea University, Seoul, Korea
- * E-mail:
| |
Collapse
|
9
|
Abstract
The perception of attractiveness is essential for choices of food, object, and mate preference. Like perception of other visual features, perception of attractiveness is stable despite constant changes of image properties due to factors like occlusion, visual noise, and eye movements. Recent results demonstrate that perception of low-level stimulus features and even more complex attributes like human identity are biased towards recent percepts. This effect is often called serial dependence. Some recent studies have suggested that serial dependence also exists for perceived facial attractiveness, though there is also concern that the reported effects are due to response bias. Here we used an attractiveness-rating task to test the existence of serial dependence in perceived facial attractiveness. Our results demonstrate that perceived face attractiveness was pulled by the attractiveness level of facial images encountered up to 6 s prior. This effect was not due to response bias and did not rely on the previous motor response. This perceptual pull increased as the difference in attractiveness between previous and current stimuli increased. Our results reconcile previously conflicting findings and extend previous work, demonstrating that sequential dependence in perception operates across different levels of visual analysis, even at the highest levels of perceptual interpretation.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Ye Xia
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA,
| | | | - David Whitney
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USAHelen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USAVision Science Group, University of California, Berkeley, CA,
| |
Collapse
|
10
|
Kok R, Taubert J, Van der Burg E, Rhodes G, Alais D. Face familiarity promotes stable identity recognition: exploring face perception using serial dependence. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2017; 4:160685. [PMID: 28405355 PMCID: PMC5383812 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.160685] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2016] [Accepted: 02/01/2017] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
Studies suggest that familiar faces are processed in a manner distinct from unfamiliar faces and that familiarity with a face confers an advantage in identity recognition. Our visual system seems to capitalize on experience to build stable face representations that are impervious to variation in retinal input that may occur due to changes in lighting, viewpoint, viewing distance, eye movements, etc. Emerging evidence also suggests that our visual system maintains a continuous perception of a face's identity from one moment to the next despite the retinal input variations through serial dependence. This study investigates whether interactions occur between face familiarity and serial dependence. In two experiments, participants used a continuous scale to rate attractiveness of unfamiliar and familiar faces (either experimentally learned or famous) presented in rapid sequences. Both experiments revealed robust inter-trial effects in which attractiveness ratings for a given face depended on the preceding face's attractiveness. This inter-trial attractiveness effect was most pronounced for unfamiliar faces. Indeed, when participants were familiar with a given face, attractiveness ratings showed significantly less serial dependence. These results represent the first evidence that familiar faces can resist the temporal integration seen in sequential dependencies and highlight the importance of familiarity to visual cognition.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Rebecca Kok
- The School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales 2006, Australia
| | - Jessica Taubert
- The School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales 2006, Australia
| | - Erik Van der Burg
- The School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales 2006, Australia
- Department of Cognitive Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Gillian Rhodes
- The School of Psychology, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia
| | - David Alais
- The School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales 2006, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
11
|
Kramer RSS. Sequential effects in Olympic synchronized diving scores. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2017; 4:160812. [PMID: 28280583 PMCID: PMC5319349 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.160812] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2016] [Accepted: 12/20/2016] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
When judging performances in a sequence, the current score is often influenced by the preceding score. Where athletes are perceived to be similar, a judgement is assimilated towards the previous one. However, if judges focus on the differences between the two athletes, this will result in a contrasting influence on their scores. Here, I investigate sequential effects during synchronized diving events at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games. Although previous research found assimilation in scores of gymnasts, the current data showed contrast effects-current scores benefited from following a poor performance but were at a disadvantage if they followed a high-scoring performance. One explanation may be that the processes involved in judging synchronized pairs results in a focus on the differences between athletes, producing a contrast effect across dives. That the specific direction of this sequential bias may depend on the particular sport has implications for how judges might approach their roles in a context-dependent manner, as well as how such biases should be addressed.
Collapse
|
12
|
Taubert J, Alais D. Serial dependence in face attractiveness judgements tolerates rotations around the yaw axis but not the roll axis. VISUAL COGNITION 2016. [DOI: 10.1080/13506285.2016.1196803] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
|
13
|
Relative judgment in facial identity perception as revealed by sequential effects. Atten Percept Psychophys 2015; 78:264-77. [DOI: 10.3758/s13414-015-0979-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
|