Generative neural networks for experimental manipulation: Examining dominance-trustworthiness face impressions with data-efficient models.

An important development in the study of face impressions was the introduction of dominance and trustworthiness as the primary and potentially orthogonal traits judged from faces. We test competing predictions of recent accounts that address evidence against the independence of these judgements. To this end we develop a version of recent 'deep models of face impressions' better suited for data-efficient experimental manipulation. In Study 1 (N = 128) we build impression models using 15 times less ratings per dimension than previously assumed necessary. In Study 2 (N = 234) we show how our method can precisely manipulate dominance and trustworthiness impressions of face photographs and observe how the effects' pattern of the cues of one trait on impressions of the other differs from previous accounts. We propose an altered account that stresses how a successful execution of the two judgements' functional roles requires impressions of trustworthiness and dominance to be based on cues of both traits. Finally we show our manipulation resulted in larger effect sizes using a broader array of features than previous methods. Our approach lets researchers manipulate face stimuli for various face perception studies and investigate new dimensions with minimal data collection.

Implicit bias and experience influence overall but not relative trustworthiness judgment of other-race faces.

Impressions of trustworthiness are formed quickly from faces. To what extent are these impressions shared among observers of the same or different races? Although high consensus of trustworthiness evaluation has been consistently reported, recent studies suggested substantial individual differences. For instance, negative implicit racial bias and low contact experience towards individuals of the other race have been shown to be related to low trustworthiness judgments for other-race faces. This pre-registered study further examined the effects of implicit social bias and experience on trustworthiness judgments of other-race faces. A relatively large sample of White (N = 338) and Black (N = 299) participants completed three tasks: a trustworthiness rating task of faces, a race implicit association test, and a questionnaire of experience. Each participant rated trustworthiness of 100 White faces and 100 Black faces. We found that the overall trustworthiness ratings for other-race faces were influenced by both implicit bias and experience with individuals of the other-race. Nonetheless, when comparing to the own-race baseline ratings, high correlations were observed for the relative differences in trustworthiness ratings of other-race faces for participants with varied levels of implicit bias and experience. These results suggest differential impact of social concepts (e.g., implicit bias, experience) vs. instinct (e.g., decision of approach-vs-avoid) on trustworthiness impressions, as revealed by overall vs. relative ratings on other-race faces.

Idiosyncratic and shared contributions shape impressions from voices and faces.

Voices elicit rich first impressions of what the person we are hearing might be like. Research stresses that these impressions from voices are shared across different listeners, such that people on average agree which voices sound trustworthy or old and which do not. However, can impressions from voices also be shaped by the 'ear of the beholder'? We investigated whether - and how - listeners' idiosyncratic, personal preferences contribute to first impressions from voices. In two studies (993 participants, 156 voices), we find evidence for substantial idiosyncratic contributions to voice impressions using a variance portioning approach. Overall, idiosyncratic contributions were as important as shared contributions to impressions from voices for inferred person characteristics (e.g., trustworthiness, friendliness). Shared contributions were only more influential for impressions of more directly apparent person characteristics (e.g., gender, age). Both idiosyncratic and shared contributions were reduced when stimuli were limited in their (perceived) variability, suggesting that natural variation in voices is key to understanding this impression formation. When comparing voice impressions to face impressions, we found that idiosyncratic and shared contributions to impressions similarly across modality when stimulus properties are closely matched - although voice impressions were overall less consistent than face impressions. We thus reconceptualise impressions from voices as being formed not only based on shared but also idiosyncratic contributions. We use this new framing to suggest future directions of research, including understanding idiosyncratic mechanisms, development, and malleability of voice impression formation.

Facial impressions of niceness influence children's interpretations of peers' ambiguous behavior.

Children infer personality traits from faces when they are asked explicitly which face appears nice or mean. Less is known about how children use face-trait information implicitly to make behavioral evaluations. We used the Ambiguous Situations Protocol to explore how children use face-trait information to form interpretations of ambiguous situations when the behavior or intention of the target child was unclear. On each trial, children (N = 144, age range = 4-11.95 years; 74 girls, 67 boys, 3 gender not specified; 70% White, 10% other or mixed race, 5% Asian, 4% Black, 1% Indigenous, 9% not specified) viewed a child's face (previously rated high or low in niceness) before seeing the child's face embedded within an ambiguous scene (Scene Task) or hearing a vignette about a misbehavior done by that child (Misbehavior Task). Children described what was happening in each scene and indicated whether each misbehavior was done on purpose or by accident. Children also rated the behavior of each child and indicated whether the child would be a good friend. Facial niceness influenced children's interpretations of ambiguous behavior (Scene Task) by 4 years of age, and ambiguous intentions (Misbehavior Task) by 6 years. Our results suggest that the use of face-trait cues to form interpretations of ambiguous behavior emerges early in childhood, a bias that may lead to differential treatment for peers perceived with a high-nice face versus a low-nice face.

Perceiving Others Through a Screen: Are First Impressions of Personality Accurate and Normative via Videoconferencing?

The use of videoconferencing platforms has globally risen to facilitate face-to-face communication since the onset of COVID-19. But how do our first impressions of people we meet on Zoom compare to in-person interactions? Specifically, do we view others' personalities as accurately (in line with their unique personality) and normatively (in line with the average, desirable personality) as in-person? Across two Zoom first-impression round-robin studies (exploratory study: N = 567, Dyads = 3,053; preregistered replication: N = 371, Dyads = 1,961), which we compared to an in-person round-robin study (N = 306; Dyads = 1,682), people viewed others' personalities as accurately and as normatively on Zoom as in-person. Moreover, people better liked interaction partners they viewed more accurately and normatively. However, in interactions of poorer audio-video quality, people viewed others less accurately, less normatively, and liked them less. Overall, through a screen, our impressions of others are as accurate and normative as face-to-face, but it depends on the quality of that screen.

The time course of person perception from voices in the brain.

When listeners hear a voice, they rapidly form a complex first impression of who the person behind that voice might be. We characterize how these multivariate first impressions from voices emerge over time across different levels of abstraction using electroencephalography and representational similarity analysis. We find that for eight perceived physical (gender, age, and health), trait (attractiveness, dominance, and trustworthiness), and social characteristics (educatedness and professionalism), representations emerge early (~80 ms after stimulus onset), with voice acoustics contributing to those representations between ~100 ms and 400 ms. While impressions of person characteristics are highly correlated, we can find evidence for highly abstracted, independent representations of individual person characteristics. These abstracted representationse merge gradually over time. That is, representations of physical characteristics (age, gender) arise early (from ~120 ms), while representations of some trait and social characteristics emerge later (~360 ms onward). The findings align with recent theoretical models and shed light on the computations underpinning person perception from voices.

Implicit versus explicit first impressions in performance-based assessment: will raters overcome their first impressions when learner performance changes?

First impressions can influence rater-based judgments but their contribution to rater bias is unclear. Research suggests raters can overcome first impressions in experimental exam contexts with explicit first impressions, but these findings may not generalize to a workplace context with implicit first impressions. The study had two aims. First, to assess if first impressions affect raters' judgments when workplace performance changes. Second, whether explicitly stating these impressions affects subsequent ratings compared to implicitly-formed first impressions. Physician raters viewed six videos where learner performance either changed (Strong to Weak or Weak to Strong) or remained consistent. Raters were assigned two groups. Group one (n = 23, Explicit) made a first impression global rating (FIGR), then scored learners using the Mini-CEX. Group two (n = 22, Implicit) scored learners at the end of the video solely with the Mini-CEX. For the Explicit group, in the Strong to Weak condition, the FIGR (M = 5.94) was higher than the Mini-CEX Global rating (GR) (M = 3.02, p < .001). In the Weak to Strong condition, the FIGR (M = 2.44) was lower than the Mini-CEX GR (M = 3.96 p < .001). There was no difference between the FIGR and the Mini-CEX GR in the consistent condition (M = 6.61, M = 6.65 respectively, p = .84). There were no statistically significant differences in any of the conditions when comparing both groups' Mini-CEX GR. Therefore, raters adjusted their judgments based on the learners' performances. Furthermore, raters who made their first impressions explicit showed similar rater bias to raters who followed a more naturalistic process.

Negative first impression judgements of autistic children by non-autistic adults.

Introduction: Although autism inclusion and acceptance has increased in recent years, autistic people continue to face stigmatization, exclusion, and victimization. Based on brief 10-second videos, non-autistic adults rate autistic adults less favourably than they rate non-autistic adults in terms of traits and behavioural intentions. In the current study, we extended this paradigm to investigate the first impressions of autistic and non-autistic children by non-autistic adult raters and examined the relationship between the rater's own characteristics and bias against autistic children. Method: Segments of video recorded interviews from 15 autistic and 15 non-autistic children were shown to 346 undergraduate students in audio with video, audio only, video only, transcript, or still image conditions. Participants rated each child on a series of traits and behavioural intentions toward the child, and then completed a series of questionnaires measuring their own social competence, autistic traits, quantity and quality of past experiences with autistic people, and explicit autism stigma. Results: Overall, autistic children were rated more negatively than non-autistic children, particularly in conditions containing audio. Raters with higher social competence and explicit autism stigma rated autistic children more negatively, whereas raters with more autistic traits and more positive past experiences with autistic people rated autistic children more positively. Discussion: These rapid negative judgments may contribute to the social exclusion experienced by autistic children. The findings indicate that certain personal characteristics may be related to more stigmatised views of autism and decreased willingness to interact with the autistic person. The implications of the findings are discussed in relation to the social inclusion and well-being of autistic people.

Facial first impressions are not mandatory: A priming investigation.

A common assertion is that, based around prominent character traits, first impressions are spontaneously extracted from faces. Specifically, mere exposure to a person is sufficient to trigger the involuntary extraction of core personality characteristics (e.g., trustworthiness, dominance, competence), an outcome that supports a range of significant judgments (e.g., hiring, investing, electing). But is this in fact the case? Noting ambiguities in the extant literature, here we used a repetition priming procedure to probe the extent to which impressions of dominance are extracted from faces absent the instruction to evaluate the stimuli in this way. Across five experiments in which either the character trait of interest was made increasingly obvious to participants (Expts. 1-3) or attention was explicitly directed toward the faces to generate low-level/high-level judgments (Expts. 4 & 5), no evidence for the spontaneous extraction of first impressions was observed. Instead, priming only emerged when judgments of dominance were an explicit requirement of the task at hand. Thus, at least using a priming methodology, the current findings contest the notion that first impressions are a mandatory product of person perception.

First impressions of a new face are shaped by infection concerns.

Along with a classical immune system, we have evolved a behavioral one that directs us away from potentially contagious individuals. Here I show, using publicly available cross-cultural data, that this adaptation is so fundamental that our first impressions of a male stranger are largely driven by the perceived health of his face. Positive (likeable, capable, intelligent, trustworthy) and negative (unfriendly, ignorant, lazy) first impressions are affected by facial health in adaptively different ways, inconsistent with a mere halo effect; they are also modulated by one's current state of health and inclination to feel disgusted by pathogens. These findings, which replicated across two countries as different as the USA and India, suggest that instinctive perceptions of badness and goodness from faces are not two sides of the same coin but reflect the (nonsymmetrical) expected costs and benefits of interaction. Apparently, pathogens run the show-and first impressions come second. Lay Summary: Our first impressions of strangers (whether they seem trustworthy, intelligent, unfriendly, or aggressive) are shaped by how healthy their faces look and by our unconscious motivation to avoid infections. Bad and good impressions turn out to reflect the concrete, potentially vital, expected costs and benefits of interacting with our fellow humans. Apparently, pathogens run the show-and first impressions come second.

A first impression of the future.

We offer a response to six commentaries on our target article 'Understanding trait impressions from faces'. A broad consensus emerged with authors emphasizing the importance of increasing the diversity of faces and participants, integrating research on impressions beyond the face, and continuing to develop methods needed for data-driven approaches. We propose future directions for the field based on these themes.

Therapists' first impression of treatment motivation moderates the relationship between the client-rated therapeutic alliance and drinking outcomes during treatment.

INTRODUCTION: First impressions can influence interpersonal relationships for extended periods, with negative first impressions leading to more negative judgments and behaviors between individuals months after their initial meeting. Although common factors such as therapeutic alliance (TA) are well studied, less is known of the potential influence of a therapist's first impression of their client's motivation on TA and drinking outcomes. Based on data from a prospective study of the perceptions of the TA among clients receiving cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT), this study examined how therapists' first impressions may moderate the relationship between client-rated TA and drinking outcomes during treatment. METHODS: One hundred fifty-four adults participated in a 12-week course of CBT and completed measures of TA and drinking behaviors following each treatment session. Additionally, therapists completed a measure of their first impression of their client's motivation for treatment following the first session. RESULTS: Time-lagged multilevel modeling revealed a significant within-person TA by therapists' first impression interaction that predicted percent days abstinent (PDA). Specifically, among participants rated as lower on first impressions of treatment motivation, higher within-person TA predicted greater PDA in the interval prior to the next treatment session. Within-person working alliance was not associated with PDA among individuals rated higher on first impressions of treatment motivation who demonstrated higher PDA throughout treatment. Furthermore, significant between-person TA by first impressions interactions were found for both PDA and drinks per drinking day (DDD), such that among individuals with lower treatment motivation, TA positively predicted PDA and negatively predicted DDD. CONCLUSION: Although therapists' first impressions of a client's treatment motivation are positively associated with treatment outcomes, clients' perception of the TA may mitigate the impact of poor first impressions. These findings highlight the need for additional nuanced examinations of the relationship between TA and treatment outcomes, emphasizing the contextual factors that influence this relationship.

Dress is a Fundamental Component of Person Perception.

ACADEMIC ABSTRACT: Clothing, hairstyle, makeup, and accessories influence first impressions. However, target dress is notably absent from current theories and models of person perception. We discuss three reasons for this minimal attention to dress in person perception: high theoretical complexity, incompatibility with traditional methodology, and underappreciation by the groups who have historically guided research in person perception. We propose a working model of person perception that incorporates target dress alongside target face, target body, context, and perceiver characteristics. Then, we identify four types of inferences for which perceivers rely on target dress: social categories, cognitive states, status, and aesthetics. For each of these, we review relevant work in social cognition, integrate this work with existing dress research, and propose future directions. Finally, we identify and offer solutions to the theoretical and methodological challenges accompanying the psychological study of dress. PUBLIC ABSTRACT: Why is it that people often agonize over what to wear for a job interview, a first date, or a party? The answer is simple: They understand that others' first impressions of them rely on their clothing, hairstyle, makeup, and accessories. Many people might be surprised, then, to learn that psychologists' theories about how people form first impressions of others have little to say about how people dress. This is true in part because the meaning of clothing is so complex and culturally dependent. We propose a working model of first impressions that identifies four types of information that people infer from dress: people's social identities, mental states, status, and aesthetic tastes. For each of these, we review existing research on clothing, integrate this research with related work from social psychology more broadly, and propose future directions for research.

Children show neural sensitivity to facial trustworthiness as measured by fast periodic visual stimulation.

Adults exhibit neural responses over the visual occipito-temporal area in response to faces that vary in how trustworthy they appear. However, it is not yet known when a mature pattern of neural sensitivity can be seen in children. Using a fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS) paradigm, face images were presented to 8-to-9-year-old children (an age group which shows development of trust impressions; N = 31) and adult (N = 33) participants at a rate of 6 Hz (6 face images per second). Within this sequence, an 'oddball' face differing in the level of facial trustworthiness compared to the other faces, was presented at a rate of 1 Hz (once per second). Children were sensitive to variations in facial trustworthiness, showing reliable and significant neural responses at 1 Hz in the absence of instructions to respond to facial trustworthiness. Additionally, the magnitude of children's and adults' neural responses was similar, with strong Bayesian evidence that implicit neural responses to facial trustworthiness did not differ across the groups, and therefore, that visual sensitivity to differences in facial trustworthiness can show mature patterns by this age. Thus, nine or less years of social experience, perceptual and/or cognitive development may be sufficient for adult-like neural sensitivity to facial trustworthiness to emerge. We also validate the use of the FPVS methodology to examine children's implicit face-based trust processing for the first time, which is especially valuable in developmental research because this paradigm requires no explicit instructions or responses from participants.

Knowledge of identity reduces variability in trait judgements across face images.

Faces vary from image to image, eliciting different judgements of traits and often different judgements of identity. Knowledge that two face images belong to the same person facilitates the processing of identity information across images, but it is unclear if this also applies to trait judgements. In this preregistered study, participants (N = 100) rated the same 340 face images on perceived trustworthiness, dominance, or attractiveness presented in randomised order and again later presented in sets consisting of the same identity. We also explored the role of implicit person theory beliefs in the variability of social judgements across images. We found that judgements of trustworthiness varied less when images were presented in sets consisting of the same identity than in randomised order and were more consistent for images presented later in a set than those presented earlier. However, knowledge of identity had little effect on perceptions of dominance and attractiveness. Finally, implicit person theory beliefs were not associated with variability in social judgements and did not account for effects of knowledge of identity. Our findings suggest that knowledge of identity and perceptual familiarity stabilises judgements of trustworthiness, but not perceptions of dominance and attractiveness.

Contextual modulation of appearance-trait learning.

When we encounter a stranger for the first time, we spontaneously attribute to them a wide variety of character traits based on their facial appearance. There is increasing consensus that learning plays a key role in these first impressions. According to the Trait Inference Mapping (TIM) model, first impressions are the products of mappings between 'face space' and 'trait space' acquired through domain-general associative processes. Drawing on the associative learning literature, TIM predicts that first-learned associations between facial appearance and character will be particularly influential: they will be difficult to unlearn and will be more likely to generalise to novel contexts than appearance-trait associations acquired subsequently. The study of face-trait learning de novo is complicated by the fact that participants, even young children, already have extensive experience with faces before they enter the lab. This renders the study of first-learned associations from faces intractable. Here, we overcome this problem by using Greebles - a class of novel synthetic objects about which participants had no previous knowledge or preconceptions - as a proxy for faces. In four experiments (total N = 640) with adult participants we adapt classic AB-A and AB-C renewal paradigms to study appearance-trait learning. Our results indicate that appearance-trait associations are subject to contextual control, and are resistant to counter-stereotypical experience.

First impressions from faces in the real world: Commentary on Sutherland and Young (2022).

The study of first impressions from faces now emphasizes the need to understand trait inferences made to naturalistic face images (British Journal of Psychology, 113, 2022, 1056). Face recognition algorithms based on deep convolutional neural networks simultaneously represent invariant, changeable and environmental variables in face images. Therefore, we suggest them as a comprehensive 'face space' model of first impressions of naturalistic faces. We also suggest that to understand trait inferences in the real world, a logical next step is to consider trait inferences made to whole people (faces and bodies). On the role of cultural contributions to trait perception, we think it is important for the field to begin to consider the way in which trait inferences motivate (or not) behaviour in independent and interdependent cultures.

Seeing is Disliking: Evidence of Bias Against Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Traditional Job Interviews.

Job interviews are an integral component of the hiring process in most fields. Our research examines job interview performance of those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared to neurotypical (NT) individuals. ASD and NT individuals were taped engaging in mock job interviews. Candidates were rated on a variety of dimensions by respondents who either watched the interview videos or read the interview transcripts and were naïve to the neurodiversity of the interviewees. NT candidates outperformed ASD candidates in the video condition, but in the absence of visual and social cues (transcript condition), individuals with ASD outperformed NT candidates. Our findings suggest that social style significantly influences hiring decisions in traditional job interviews and may bias evaluators against otherwise qualified candidates.

First impressions: Integrating faces and bodies in personality trait perception.

Faces and bodies spontaneously elicit personality trait judgments (e.g., trustworthy, dominant, lazy). We examined how trait information from the face and body combine to form first impressions of the whole person and whether trait judgments from the face and body are affected by seeing the whole person. Consistent with the trait-dependence hypothesis, Experiment 1 showed that the relative contribution of the face and body to whole-person perception varied with the trait judged. Agreeableness traits (e.g., warm, aggressive, sympathetic, trustworthy) were inferred primarily from the face, conscientiousness traits (e.g., dependable, careless) from the body, and extraversion traits (e.g., dominant, quiet, confident) from the whole person. A control experiment showed that both clothing and body shape contributed to whole-person judgments. In Experiment 2, we found that a face (body) rated in the whole person elicited a different rating than when it was rated in isolation. Specifically, when trait ratings differed for an isolated face and body of the same identity, the whole-person context biased in-context ratings of the faces and bodies towards the ratings of the context. These results showed that face and body trait perception interact more than previously assumed. We combine current and established findings to propose a novel framework to account for face-body integration in trait perception. This framework incorporates basic elements such as perceptual determinants, nonperceptual determinants, trait formation, and integration, as well as predictive factors such as the rater, the person rated, and the situation.

From the Viscera to First Impressions: Phase-Dependent Cardio-Visual Signals Bias the Perceived Trustworthiness of Faces.

When we see new people, we rapidly form first impressions. Whereas past research has focused on the role of morphological or emotional cues, we asked whether transient visceral states bias the impressions we form. Across three studies (N = 94 university students), we investigated how fluctuations of bodily states, driven by the interoceptive impact of cardiac signals, influence the perceived trustworthiness of faces. Participants less often chose faces presented in synchrony with their own cardiac systole as more trustworthy than faces presented out of synchrony. Participants also explicitly judged faces presented in synchrony with their cardiac systole as less trustworthy. Finally, the presentation of faces in synchrony with participants' cardiac diastole did not modulate participants' perceptions of the faces' trustworthiness, suggesting that the systolic phase is necessary for such interoceptive effects. These findings highlight the role of phasic interoceptive information in the processing of social information and provide a mechanistic account of the role of visceroception for social perception.