Perception gap of aged facial appearance; self-perception is younger than actual status due to angle of viewing

Facial morphology changes with aging, resulting in an aged appearance that is a great matter of concern for people. However, it is not clear whether people perceive their own facial appearance accurately, in part because there are few methods to evaluate this.

The aim of this study is firstly to establish an evaluation system for the perception gap of aged facial appearance between the self-perceived status and the actual status, and then to use this evaluation system to quantify the perception gap and to clarify the mechanism of this gap METHOD: Thirty-six middle-aged female volunteers were first asked to rate their facial aging-related morphology according to a 6-grade set of photos taken at a 45° angle from the front showing progressive stages of sagging severity, without looking either in a mirror or at photos of themselves (self- or "subjective" perception). Then they were shown photos of their face taken at a 45° angle from the front, and asked again to rate their sagging grade based on these photos ("objective" rating). In addition, facial photos taken from several angles from the front to the side were evaluated for sagging severity by trained evaluators.

This system for analyzing perception gap revealed that the self-perception of aged appearance was significantly younger than the actual situation in three facial areas, namely the cheek, around the eyes and the facial contour, and the gap corresponded to an age difference of as much as 8 years in middle-aged females. Trained evaluators found that the severity of sagging judged from photos taken from a frontal direction was significantly less than in photos of the same subject taken from side angles. This suggests that recognition of sagging is more difficult from the front, which is the direction from which people view their own face in daily life. Indeed, viewing photos taken from the side, a rare viewing angle of one's own face, increased the motivation to improve aged appearance in more than 70% of the subjects in a questionnaire survey.

The results suggest that people perceive their own facial appearance as less aged than it actually is. The reason for this appears to be that viewing from the front, the usual viewing angle of one's own face in daily life, results in lower perceived sagging severity, likely due to reduced depth perception.