How Well Can Words Capture Facial Appearance? A Cross-Linguistic Exploration

When describing faces, people often struggle with verbalizing facial features. Free descriptions seem to focus predominantly on aspects of faces that are inferred, for example, psychological traits, age, attractiveness, and so on, whereas facial features themselves are often described in a limited and imprecise fashion. However, existing research relies heavily on large, industrialized societies of the West, so it is unclear if the peculiar characteristics of facial language are universal or limited to a narrow set of languages. As part of the ongoing effort to diversify cognitive sciences, we investigate this under-researched area through a verbal description task targeting a selection of 51 facial features in a small-scale nonindustrialized group of Maniq speakers (Austroasiatic) and an industrialized group of Polish speakers (Indo-European). Our results suggest facial appearance is poorly coded in both Maniq and Polish. In addition, while the major types of physical facial descriptors used across both languages are similar, Maniq speakers show a more uniform focus on directly observable aspects of faces, whereas Polish speakers are additionally inclined to infer socially relevant meaning from faces, even when not prompted to do so. All in all, although facial appearance is generally difficult to put into words, culture-specific factors shape the language of faces in distinct ways.