Faces on Her and His Mind: Female and Likable

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Social Psychology

Background:

• Face perception is crucial for social interaction and exhibits gender specificity.
• Understanding factors influencing gender differences in face perception is essential for social cognition research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the link between face resemblance and gender-specific face impressions.
• To determine if this association is dependent on the perceiver's gender.
• To examine the relationship between face resemblance and likability across genders.

Main Methods:

• Utilized "Face-n-Food" images with varying degrees of facial resemblance.
• Employed a spontaneous recognition task and a two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) task.
• Participants judged images for gender (female/male) and likability (likable/unlikable).

Main Results:

• Higher face resemblance correlated with more "female" responses, irrespective of perceiver gender.
• Face resemblance was positively associated with likability, but exclusively for female perceivers.
• Demonstrated a clear link between the degree of facial resemblance and gendered impressions.

Conclusions:

• Face resemblance significantly influences gender-specific face impressions in a non-perceiver-gender-specific manner.
• Face likability is enhanced by face resemblance, but this effect is moderated by perceiver gender.
• Findings contribute to understanding gender specificity in face perception and social brain function.