Mating with Multi-Armed Bandits: Reinforcement Learning Models of Human Mate Search

Mate choice requires navigating an exploration-exploitation trade-off. Successful mate choice requires choosing partners who have preferred qualities; but time spent determining one partner's qualities could have been spent exploring for potentially superior alternatives. Here I argue that this dilemma can be modeled in a reinforcement learning framework as a multi-armed bandit problem. Moreover, using agent-based models and a sample of k = 522 real-world romantic dyads, I show that a reciprocity-weighted Thompson sampling algorithm performs well both in guiding mate search in noisy search environments and in reproducing the mate choices of real-world participants. These results provide a formal model of the understudied psychology of human mate search. They additionally offer implications for our understanding of person perception and mate choice.

The effect of approach and avoidance motivation on self-perception

This work addresses the link between motivation and self-perception by systematically studying visual self-representations. We propose that the way individuals perceive themselves may be associated with dispositional and situationally induced approach and avoidance motivation. First, we investigate how dispositional differences in approach/avoidance motivation and self-esteem relate to self-perception. Second, we investigate how state differences in approach/avoidance motivation relate to self-perception. Based on motivation literature, we predicted that self-perception would reflect psychological equanimity at the dispositional level (seeing the self in a favorable light), and motivational flexibility at the situational level (situational avoidance motivation results in a more realistic view of one's qualities). We use up-to-date face modeling methods to measure individuals' self-perceptions in a systematic, nuanced, and implicit way: Participants are repeatedly asked to indicate which of two portrait versions better represents themselves. Then we relate distortions in self-perceptions to agency and communion dimensions. We demonstrate that (1) participants low in self-esteem show more communion enhancement than participants high in self-esteem; (2) participants in an avoidance state show less agency enhancement (i.e., more realistic self-perceptions) than participants in an approach state. This research is first to demonstrate regularities in visual self-perception that are linked to approach and avoidance motivation.

Age-dependent changes in skin features and perceived facial appearance in women of five ethnic groups

OBJECTIVE

Research documents effects of skin features on assessments of age, health and attractiveness of female faces. Ethnic variation also has been reported for the impact of age-related changes in skin features on face assessments. Here, we investigate women's self-ratings across age cohorts and ethnic groups and discrepancies with (non-expert) assessor ratings of facial appearance together with age-dependent changes in skin features.

METHODS

Faces of women 20-65 years from five ethnic groups (each n = 36) were imaged. Participants provided self-ratings of age, health and attractiveness, and were judged on these attributes by members of the same ethnic group (each n = 120). Digital image analysis was used to quantify skin gloss, tone evenness, wrinkling and sagging. Age-dependent changes in ratings and skin features within and between ethnic groups were assessed by comparing information from 10-year cohorts. We also tested whether menopausal status could be predicted by self-ratings, assessor ratings and image-based skin features.

RESULTS

Women of all ethnic groups judged themselves younger and higher in attractiveness and health compared to third-party assessors, with the largest discrepancies for age in French women and for attractiveness and health in South African women. In Indian and South African women, specular gloss and skin tone evenness were lower compared to other participants, and sagging was higher in Indian, Japanese and South African women compared to Chinese and French women. Women's menopausal status could be predicted from assessor ratings and image-based skin features but not from self-ratings.

CONCLUSION

There are differences between women's self-ratings and assessor ratings of facial appearance. These discrepancies vary with female age and ethnicity. Age and ethnicity effects also are evident in age-dependent changes in skin features within and across ethnic groups, which together with assessor (but not self-) ratings of facial appearance predict menopausal status.

Novel online enfacement illusion for investigating self-perception in mental disorders: an experimental study protocol

BACKGROUND

Remote research methods and interventions for mental health disorders have become increasingly important, particularly for conditions like eating disorders (EDs). Embodiment illusions, which induce feelings of ownership over another person?s body or body parts, offer valuable insights into the mechanisms underlying self-perception issues in EDs and potential interventions. However, existing research using these illusions has been limited to face-to-face settings. We illustrate a novel online protocol to induce the enfacement illusion (embodiment illusion principles applied to one's face) in an ED-based sample.

METHODS

Participants complete a 2-hr virtual session with a researcher. First, baseline trait/state ED psychopathology measures and a self-face recognition task occur. Second, participants experience two testing blocks of the enfacement illusion involving synchronously and asynchronously mimicking a pre-recorded actor's facial expressions. After each block, subjective and objective enfacement illusion measures occur alongside state ED psychopathology reassessment.

DISCUSSION

Successfully inducing enfacement illusions online could provide an affordable, accessible virtual approach to further elucidate the mechanistic role of self-perception disturbances across psychopathologies such as EDs. Moreover, this protocol may represent an innovative, remotely-delivered intervention strategy, as 'enfacement' over another face could update negative self-representations in a cost-effective, scalable manner.

'Magic cosmetic fillers': Appearance-enhancement effects on self-face recognition

People naturally exhibit a self-serving bias which can be observed in their tendency to judge their own physical attractiveness more favourably than that of others. Despite this positive self-perception, minimally invasive cosmetic injectable procedures for facial rejuvenation and enhancement are becoming increasingly common. It remains unclear, however, whether recognizing an altered version of one's own face, enhanced cosmetically, correlates with a positive view of cosmetic surgery and excessive preoccupations about physical characteristics perceived as defects (body dysmorphic concerns). In this study, 30 healthy female participants, aged 18-24 years (Mage = 21.1 years, SD = 1.6), engaged in a face recognition task during which their faces were digitally morphed with that of gender-matched unfamiliar women who had undergone cosmetic enhancements, specifically lip and cheek fillers. The duration of exposure to these modified faces varied with short (500 msec) and long (2000 msec) viewing periods. Participants were asked to identify whether the digital morphs represented themselves or the other woman. Self-reports regarding acceptance of cosmetic surgery and dysmorphic concerns were collected. Participants PSE indicated a tendency towards self-bias under short presentation times, shifting towards the other as presentation times lengthened. Interestingly, this effect was associated with greater acceptance of cosmetic surgery and higher body dysmorphic concerns. This study underscores the importance of understanding how perceptions of others' physical appearances can influence self-recognition and attitudes towards cosmetic surgery, which may have both positive and potentially harmful implications.

Beautiful Strangers: Physical Evaluation of Strangers Is Influenced by Friendship Expectation

People tend to evaluate themselves as better than they actually are. Such enhanced positive evaluation occurs not only for the self but also for close others. We extend the exploration of enhanced evaluation of close others to that of strangers. We predict that when individuals consider becoming friends with a stranger, their preference for a pleasant physical experience will drive an enhanced evaluation of that person. In two experiments, participants who considered friendship with a stranger evaluated the stranger as looking, sounding, and smelling better than how control participants evaluated them. The amount of time participants expected to spend with the stranger predicted their evaluation (Studies 1-2). In a large-scale third study, using various target stimuli, we found that when participants have an interest in a friendship but then are unable to physically spend time together, the enhanced-evaluation effect is weaker compared with when they could spend time together.

Eye size recognition of self and others among people with self-face dissatisfaction

Previous studies have shown that individuals visually recognize their eye size as larger than the actual. However, it is unclear whether this cognitive tendency occurs in people with high self-face dissatisfaction. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether the cognitive size of one's own and others' eyes differs according to the degree of self-face dissatisfaction. Participants comprised 32 college students (5 males, 27 females; age: 21.3 ± 2.11) who completed the Face Dissatisfaction Scale (FDS) and a face recognition memory task. The task was to choose whether their or their friends' eyes in the face photos with changed eye size were larger or smaller than their actual eye size. The cognitively equivalent eye size to the actual one was estimated from a psychophysical function. We conducted a correlation analysis of the total scores on the FDS and the point of subjective equality (PSE) of eye size. We found a high negative correlation between the FDS and the PSE of own eye size. There was also a high positive correlation between the FDS and the PSE for all others' faces. Thus, high self-face dissatisfaction is differentially associated with cognitive distortions of the face, depending on whether it is self or other.

Singles' similarity preferences in an ideal partner: What, when, and why

This study investigated singles' similarity preferences concerning their ideal partner's personality traits, physical attractiveness, and social resources, as well as potential moderators (fear of being single and mate value) and mediators (forecasted satisfaction). With 1,014 Chinese singles, we found that singles preferred their ideal partner to share similarities in the HEXACO traits, physical attractiveness, and social resources, and they preferred higher similarity in Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience. Fear of being single, mate value, and forecasted satisfaction did not affect similarity preferences concerning Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience but had some mixed influence over similarity preferences for other features.

An exploratory study on the barriers to innovative behavior: the spiteful effect of envy

Purpose

The present investigation aimed to evaluate the influence of envy on the predisposition to innovative behavior, starting from a conceptual model that considers not only the direct influence of envy but its indirect influence through ostracism and alignment with the negative behaviors of superiors.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a survey applied to 168 individuals, a conceptual model was developed based on the relationship ignored in the literature between envy and innovative behavior. The model was validated using the multivariate statistical technique of structural equation modeling with partial least squares estimation (Partial least squares structural equation modeling [PLS-SEM]).

Findings

The results of the study suggest that envy not only has a direct positive influence on alignment with negative boss behaviors and ostracism, but also an indirect influence on ostracism mediated by alignment with negative boss behaviors. Another important result of the present investigation refers to the negative effect of envy on the predisposition to innovative behavior. The results suggest that the greater the envy, the lower the innovative behavior.

Practical implications

This research provides evidence that envy can act as a barrier to innovation by triggering counterproductive behaviors such as ostracism and a decrease in predisposition to innovative behaviors, either due to innovative individuals prematurely exiting the organization or due to them lessening/dampening their innovativeness to avoid the negative consequences. Given this scenario, it becomes necessary to increase managerial awareness on the subject to manage negative emotions to promote the conditions for organizational innovation.

Originality/value

The present research contributes in both practical and theoretical ways to understanding the effects of envy on the predisposition to innovative behavior. Adding to this, this research represents a conceptual advance by linking envy to innovative behavior, providing a promising avenue for extending the psychological relevance of the envy construct to organizational and management studies, which are generally positive, normative and outcome-oriented.

The Cocksure Conundrum: How Evolution Created a Gendered Currency of Corporate Overconfidence

Biological differences between men and women mandate that women’s obligatory investment in reproduction is significantly greater than that of men. As a result, women have evolved to be the “choosier” of the two sexes and men have evolved to compete for female choice. To the degree that overconfidence is an effective tool for attracting mates and driving away competitors, greater competition among men suggests that they should express more overconfidence than women. Thus, sexual selection may be the primary reason why overconfidence is typically more pronounced in men than it is in women. Sexual selection may also be a distal, causal factor in what we describe as a cult of overconfidence pervading modern organizations and institutions. Whereas overconfidence was once regulated and constrained by features of ancestral life, levels of social mobility and accountability in contemporary society and modern organizations make it increasingly difficult to keep this gendered bias in check.

Resemblance Reporting on Children: Sisters Are More Proactive than Brothers

The asymmetric grandparental investment in humans may ultimately be explained by the paternity uncertainty hypothesis. The proximate mechanisms leading to grandparental bias in investment in grandchildren are, however, unclear. In a study of 233 males and females with an opposite sexed sibling, we examined whether comments on resemblance regarding one’s own child, or one’s sibling’s child, changed in frequency after both siblings became parents. We found that comments among siblings on resemblance of children occurred more frequently after both became parents, compared to when only one of the siblings had children, suggesting that resemblance descriptions may become more important after both siblings have children. Furthermore, and in line with the suggestion that mothers may mentally exploit the alloparenting environment by holding a stronger belief about resemblance, brothers reported that their sisters commented on resemblance concerning their own child more often and more intensely. Additionally, sisters corroborated this finding by self-reporting that they were the most proactive during resemblance descriptions of their brothers’ child. Thus, sisters might, through more frequent voicing of stronger opinions on parent–child resemblance than their brothers, influence alloparents’ perception of resemblance to their children and thus influence alloparental investments.

The powerful self: How social power and gender influence face perception

While ample evidence supports an association between power and dominance, little is still known about how temporary experiences of power influence the way people come to see themselves and others. The present research investigates the effect of social power on self- and other-face recognition, and examines whether gender modulates the direction of this effect. Male and female participants were induced to feel either powerful or powerless and had to recognize their own face and those of same-sex strangers from a series of images ranging from a dominant to a submissive version of the original. Results showed that males more frequently chose a dominant self-image under high power, whereas females selected a submissive self-image under low power. When presented with faces of same-sex targets female participants relied on low-power features (i.e., submissiveness) of the self in the perception of others (assimilation effect), whereas male participants more often selected a dominant image of strangers when feeling powerless (constrast effect). The effects of power did not extend to more deliberate judgments of dominance and likability, suggesting that respective biases in face recollection operated at an implicit level. This research underscores the cognitive and motivational underpinnings of power and related gender gaps in power attainment.

The Self in the Mind's Eye: Revealing How We Truly See Ourselves Through Reverse Correlation

Is there a way to visually depict the image people "see" of themselves in their minds' eyes? And if so, what can these mental images tell us about ourselves? We used a computational reverse-correlation technique to explore individuals' mental "self-portraits" of their faces and body shapes in an unbiased, data-driven way (total N = 116 adults). Self-portraits were similar to individuals' real faces but, importantly, also contained clues to each person's self-reported personality traits, which were reliably detected by external observers. Furthermore, people with higher social self-esteem produced more true-to-life self-portraits. Unlike face portraits, body portraits had negligible relationships with individuals' actual body shape, but as with faces, they were influenced by people's beliefs and emotions. We show how psychological beliefs and attitudes about oneself bias the perceptual representation of one's appearance and provide a unique window into the internal mental self-representation-findings that have important implications for mental health and visual culture.

Identifying with the beautiful: Facial attractiveness effects on unisensory and multisensory self-other distinction

People tend to evaluate their own traits and abilities favourably and such favourable self-perceptions extend to attractiveness. However, the exact mechanism underlying this self-enhancement bias remains unclear. One possibility could be the identification with attractive others through blurring of self–other boundaries. Across two experiments, we used the enfacement illusion to investigate the effect of others’ attractiveness in the multisensory perception of the self. In Experiment 1 (N = 35), participants received synchronous or asynchronous interpersonal visuo-tactile stimulation with an attractive and non-attractive face. In Experiment 2 (N = 35), two new faces were used and spatial incongruency was introduced as a control condition. The results showed that increased ratings of attractiveness of an unfamiliar face lead to blurring of self–other boundaries, allowing the identification of our psychological self with another’s physical self and specifically their face, and this seems to be unrelated to perceived own attractiveness. The effect of facial attractiveness on face ownership showed dissociable mechanisms, with multisensory integration modulating the effect on similarity but not identification, an effect that may be purely based on vision. Overall, our findings suggest that others’ attractiveness may lead to positive distortions of the self. This research provides a psychophysical starting point for studying the impact of others’ attractiveness on self-face recognition, which can be particularly important for individuals with malleable, embodied self–other boundaries and body image disturbances.

Self-other distinction and borderline personality disorder features: Evidence for egocentric and altercentric bias in a self-other facial morphing task

Self-other distinction (SOD) refers to the ability to distinguish one's own body, actions, and mental representations from those of others. Problems with SOD are considered to be a key feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, empirical studies on SOD in BPD are scarce. Here, we present a study providing preliminary support for the usefulness and validity of a self-other facial morphing task to capture the capacity for SOD in a sample of nonclinical participants high (n = 30) and low (n = 32) in BPD features. Participants had to watch a video sequence in which their own face was gradually morphed into the face of an unfamiliar other (self-to-other) or vice versa (other-to-self), requiring them to indicate at which point they judged the morph to look more like the target face than the starting face. Consistent with predictions, results showed that participants in the high-BPD group judged the morph to look like themselves for longer in the self-to-other direction (suggestive of egocentric bias), but only with a relatively more attractive target face. In the other-to-self direction, the high-BPD group had more difficulty recognizing their own face (i.e., an altercentric bias), but this time only with the relatively less attractive face. Further research is needed to replicate these findings in clinical samples, but overall they suggest that the current task might be suited to investigate SOD problems in BPD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Contextual effects on smile perception and recognition memory

Most past research has focused on the role played by social context information in emotion classification, such as whether a display is perceived as belonging to one emotion category or another. The current study aims to investigate whether the effect of context extends to the interpretation of emotion displays, i.e. smiles that could be judged either as posed or spontaneous readouts of underlying positive emotion. A between-subjects design (N = 93) was used to investigate the perception and recall of posed smiles, presented together with a happy or polite social context scenario. Results showed that smiles seen in a happy context were judged as more spontaneous than the same smiles presented in a polite context. Also, smiles were misremembered as having more of the physical attributes (i.e., Duchenne marker) associated with spontaneous enjoyment when they appeared in the happy than polite context condition. Together, these findings indicate that social context information is routinely encoded during emotion perception, thereby shaping the interpretation and recognition memory of facial expressions.

Quantitating the art and science of esthetic clinical success

BACKGROUND

Beginning with the biobehavioral bases of esthetic experiences, this article presents a quantitative analytic review of the motives and methods of providers and consumers of orthodontic treatment.

METHOD

A primary focus is determining the anthropometric bases of self and others' perceived preference and satisfaction with changes in facial appearance. These quantitative analyses have been based on determining the frequency and magnitude of reliability and validity measures of diagnosis, treatment, and satisfaction outcome. Socioeconomic considerations are also quantitated regarding the discrepancy between objective need for treatment as determined for example by the Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need and the subjective demand for treatment.

RESULTS

The major contribution of this article is the quantitation of the components of esthetic experience from sensation of perception using psycho physical methods, such as Perceptometrics, for determining the morphological basis of perceived facial attractiveness adjusted for ethnocultural differences updated by 3-dimensional and artificial intelligence technology. Recent quantitation of smile components has also added to the measures of esthetically successful treatment. Further contribution of orthodontists to mental and physical health is demonstrated by the differences between perceived personality attributes in profile and full-frontal views of symmetric and asymmetric faces. Such information can facilitate the clinician's ability to determine the ideational representation of the patients' perceived pre- and post-treatment outcome.

CONCLUSION

The quantitative analysis of the motives and methods involved in the orthodontic treatment process has been combined with the neurophysiological correlates of producing and observing/evaluation of the esthetic experiences of both patients and orthodontists/dentists.

The Mirror of Mind: Visualizing Mental Representations of Self Through Reverse Correlation

The reverse correlation (RC) method has been widely used, because it allows visualization of mental representations without a priori assumptions about relevant dimensions. We employed the RC method to visualize mental representations of self and examined their relationships with traits related to self-image. For this purpose, 110 participants (70 women) performed a two-image forced choice RC task to generate a classification image of self (self-CI). Participants perceived their self-CIs as bearing a stronger resemblance to themselves than did CIs of others (filler-CIs). Valence ratings of participants who performed the RC task (RC sample) and of 30 independent raters both showed positive correlations with self-esteem, explicit self-evaluation, and extraversion. Moreover, valence ratings of independent raters were negatively correlated with social anxiety symptoms. On the other hand, valence ratings of the RC sample and independent raters were not correlated with depression symptoms, trait anxiety, or social desirability. The results imply that mental representations of self can be properly visualized by using the RC method.

Influence of sexual dimorphism on the attractiveness evaluation of one's own face

The present study aimed to explore the influence of sexual dimorphism on the evaluation of the attractiveness of one's own face. In the experiment, a masculinized and a feminized version of the self-faces of the participants were obtained by transferring the original faces toward the average male or female face. The participants were required to rate the attractiveness of three types (original, masculine, feminine) of their own faces and the other participants' faces in same-sex and opposite-sex contexts. The results revealed that the participants rated their own faces as more attractive than other participants rated them regardless of the sexually dimorphic type (original, masculine, feminine) or the evaluation context. More importantly, the male and female participants showed different preferences for the three types of self-faces. Specifically, in the same-sex context, the female participants rated their own original faces as significantly more attractive than the masculine and feminine faces, and the male participants rated their own masculine faces as significantly more attractive than the feminine faces; while in the opposite-sex context, no significant difference among the attractiveness scores of the three types of self-faces was found in both the male and female participants. The present study provides empirical evidence of the influence of sexual dimorphism on the evaluation of the attractiveness of self-faces.

Number of friends and self-perception among Jamaican children: the role of attractiveness and fluctuating asymmetry

The role that physical attractiveness and fluctuating asymmetry (FA), a measure of developmental instability, play in self-perception and peer associations were explored in a well-studied cohort of Jamaican children using a novel research paradigm where subjects were already known to each other for extensive periods of time. The results showed that how attractive a child was perceived by others was significantly positively correlated with self-ratings of attractiveness. Contrary to findings from WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) samples, the study found a reversal in the sex differences in self-perceived attractiveness and self-esteem, where Jamaican females rate themselves more attractive and report higher self-esteem than do males. Attractiveness also predicts overall popularity, as measured by desirability as a friend and the percentage of peers who choose an individual as a friend. Attractive individuals of both sexes were chosen more often as ‘friends’. A significant correlation was also found between an individual’s FA and the average FA of those chosen as friends. However, the effect was primarily due to preferences by males for female friends possessing similar levels of FA, which could be an effective strategy in reducing future mating effort.

Self-Resemblance Modulates Processing of Socio-Emotional Pictures in a Context-Sensitive Manner

Abstract. Relevance of emotional information varies with self-involvement. The current study was undertaken to test whether subtle facial self-resemblance is sufficient to affect attentional and affective processing of complex socio-emotional pictures. Faces digitally manipulated to resemble the participants’ (final sample: N = 21) own versus unfamiliar control faces (form and color morphs) were presented in pictures of emotionally evocative social interactions, that is, threat versus sex scenes. At stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of either 300 ms or 3,000 ms after picture onset, startle responses were elicited by acoustic white noise bursts (50 ms, 105 dB), and recorded at the orbicularis oculi via electromyography (EMG). The majority of participants remained unaware of the morphing manipulation, and awareness did not affect the principal results. As indexed by inhibition of startle at short lead intervals and by picture-evoked heart rate deceleration, facial self-resemblance modulates effects of motivational salience in a context-sensitive way, increasing prepulse inhibition with threat-related, but not erotic cues. Overall, the present study suggests that visual cues of general motivational significance and of self-relevance are integrated in a fast, presumably automatic manner.

Perception and Deception: Human Beauty and the Brain

Human physical characteristics and their perception by the brain are under pressure by natural selection to optimize reproductive success. Men and women have different strategies to appear attractive and have different interests in identifying beauty in people. Nevertheless, men and women from all cultures agree on who is and who is not attractive, and throughout the world attractive people show greater acquisition of resources and greater reproductive success than others. The brain employs at least three modules, composed of interconnected brain regions, to judge facial attractiveness: one for identification, one for interpretation and one for valuing. Key elements that go into the judgment are age and health, as well as symmetry, averageness, face and body proportions, facial color and texture. These elements are all Costly Signals of reproductive fitness because they are difficult to fake. However, people deceive others using tricks such as coloring hair, cosmetics and clothing styles, while at the same time they also focus on detecting fakes. People may also deceive themselves, especially about their own attractiveness, and use self-signally actions to demonstrate to themselves their own true value. The neuroscience of beauty is best understood by considering the evolutionary pressures to maximize reproductive fitness.

Thinner than yourself: self-serving bias in body size estimation

The self-serving bias is the tendency to consider oneself in unrealistically positive terms. This phenomenon has been documented for body attractiveness, but it remains unclear to what extent it can also emerge for own body size perception. In the present study, we examined this issue in healthy young adults (45 females and 40 males), using two body size estimation (BSE) measures and taking into account inter-individual differences in eating disorder risk. Participants observed pictures of avatars, built from whole body photos of themselves or an unknown other matched for gender. Avatars were parametrically distorted along the thinness-heaviness dimension, and individualised by adding the head of the self or the other. In the first BSE task, participants indicated in each trial whether the seen avatar was thinner or fatter than themselves (or the other). In the second BSE task, participants chose the best representative body size for self and other from a set of avatars. Greater underestimation for self than other body size emerged in both tasks, comparably for women and men. Thinner bodies were also judged as more attractive, in line with standard of beauty in modern western society. Notably, this self-serving bias in BSE was stronger in people with low eating disorder risk. In sum, positive attitudes towards the self can extend to body size estimation in young adults, making own body size closer to the ideal body. We propose that this bias could play an adaptive role in preserving a positive body image.

The Influence of Face Inversion and Spatial Frequency on the Self-Positive Expression Processing Advantage

Previous research has examined the impact of late self-evaluation, ignoring the impact of the early visual coding stage and the extraction of facial identity information and expression information on the self-positive expression processing advantage. From the perspective of the processing course, this study examined the stability of the self-positive expression processing advantage and revealed its generation mechanism. In Experiment 1, inverted self-expression and others’ expressive pictures were used to influence early structural coding. In Experiments 2a and 2b, we used expression pictures of high and low spatial frequency, thereby affecting the extraction of facial identity information or expression information in the mid-term stage. The visual search paradigm was adopted in three experiments, asking subjects to respond to the target expression. We found that under the above experimental conditions, the search speed for self-faces was always faster than that for self-angry expressions and others’ faces. These results showed that, compared with others’ expressions and self-angry expressions, self-positive expressions were more prominent and more attractive. These findings suggest that self-expression recognition combines with conceptual self-knowledge to form an abstract and constant processing pattern. Therefore, the processing of self-expression recognition was not affected by the facial orientation and spatial frequencies.

Startling similarity: Effects of facial self-resemblance and familiarity on the processing of emotional faces

Facial self-resemblance has been associated with positive emotional evaluations, but this effect may be biased by self-face familiarity. Here we report two experiments utilizing startle modulation to investigate how the processing of facial expressions of emotion is affected by subtle resemblance to the self as well as to familiar faces. Participants of the first experiment (I) (N = 39) were presented with morphed faces showing happy, neutral, and fearful expressions which were manipulated to resemble either their own or unknown faces. At SOAs of either 300 ms or 3500–4500 ms after picture onset, startle responses were elicited by binaural bursts of white noise (50 ms, 105 dB), and recorded at the orbicularis oculi via EMG. Manual reaction time was measured in a simple emotion discrimination paradigm. Pictures preceding noise bursts by short SOA inhibited startle (prepulse inhibition, PPI). Both affective modulation and PPI of startle in response to emotional faces was altered by physical similarity to the self. As indexed both by relative facilitation of startle and faster manual responses, self-resemblance apparently induced deeper processing of facial affect, particularly in happy faces. Experiment II (N = 54) produced similar findings using morphs of famous faces, yet showed no impact of mere familiarity on PPI effects (or response time, either). The results are discussed with respect to differential (presumably pre-attentive) effects of self-specific vs. familiar information in face processing.

Motivation alters impression formation and related neural systems

Observers frequently form impressions of other people based on complex or conflicting information. Rather than being objective, these impressions are often biased by observers’ motives. For instance, observers often downplay negative information they learn about ingroup members. Here, we characterize the neural systems associated with biased impression formation. Participants learned positive and negative information about ingroup and outgroup social targets. Following this information, participants worsened their impressions of outgroup, but not ingroup, targets. This tendency was associated with a failure to engage neural structures including lateral prefrontal cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, temporoparietal junction, Insula and Precuneus when processing negative information about ingroup (but not outgroup) targets. To the extent that participants engaged these regions while learning negative information about ingroup members, they exhibited less ingroup bias in their impressions. These data are consistent with a model of ‘effortless bias’, under which perceivers fail to process goal-inconsistent information in order to maintain desired conclusions.

Choosing face: The curse of self in profile image selection

People draw automatic social inferences from photos of unfamiliar faces and these first impressions are associated with important real-world outcomes. Here we examine the effect of selecting online profile images on first impressions. We model the process of profile image selection by asking participants to indicate the likelihood that images of their own face (“self-selection”) and of an unfamiliar face (“other-selection”) would be used as profile images on key social networking sites. Across two large Internet-based studies (n = 610), in line with predictions, image selections accentuated favorable social impressions and these impressions were aligned to the social context of the networking sites. However, contrary to predictions based on people’s general expertise in self-presentation, other-selected images conferred more favorable impressions than self-selected images. We conclude that people make suboptimal choices when selecting their own profile pictures, such that self-perception places important limits on facial first impressions formed by others. These results underscore the dynamic nature of person perception in real-world contexts.

The Impact of Symmetry on the Efficiency of Human Face Perception

The presence of symmetric properties in a stimulus has been shown to often exert an influence on perception and information processing. Investigations into symmetry have given rise to the notion that it is processed easily and efficiently by the human visual system. However, only a handful of studies have attempted to actually measure symmetry’s role in the efficiency of information use. We explored the impact of symmetry on the perception of human faces, a domain where it has been thought to play a particularly important role. Specifically, we measured information processing efficiency, defined as human performance relative to that of an ideal observer, for the detection, discrimination, and identification of symmetric and asymmetric faces. Surprisingly, we found no evidence for significant differences in efficiency between these two classes of stimuli. Training yielded significant improvements in overall efficiency, but had no significant effect on the relative efficiency of asymmetric and symmetric face identification. Our results indicate that although symmetry may be important to other aspects of face perception (e.g., perceived beauty), it has no discernible impact upon the efficiency with which information is used when detecting, discriminating, and identifying faces.

I feel bad and look worse than you: Social comparisons moderate the effect of mood on face health judgement

Mood can bias the judgements people make about themselves and how people compare themselves to others. However, it is not yet clear whether mood also affects appearance-based self-evaluations and social comparisons. Given the importance of perceived health status for well-being, we investigated the effect of mood on self-image and social comparisons of healthiness during two versions of a face health judgement task. Thirty participants judged how they felt compared to healthy and unhealthy looking versions of their own (self version) and a stranger's face (stranger version), after a positive, negative and neutral mood induction. The effect of mood was dependent on self/stranger task order. Although mood did not affect face health judgement for participants who initially judged themselves against their own face, it did affect face health judgement for participants who initially judged themselves in comparison to a stranger's face. After the positive and negative mood inductions, these participants judged themselves as equivalent to healthier/unhealthier looking versions of their own and stranger's faces, respectively. Thus, social comparisons of facial healthiness could provide a perceptual measure of state well-being.

Selfie Indulgence

People often perceive themselves as more attractive and likable than others do. Here, we examined how these self-favoring biases manifest in a highly popular novel context that is particularly self-focused—selfies. Specifically, we analyzed selfie-takers’ and non-selfie-takers’ perceptions of their selfies versus photos taken by others and compared these to the judgments of external perceivers. Although selfie-takers and non-selfie-takers reported equal levels of narcissism, we found that the selfie-takers perceived themselves as more attractive and likable in their selfies than in others’ photos, but that non-selfie-takers viewed both photos similarly. Furthermore, external judges rated the targets as less attractive, less likable, and more narcissistic in their selfies than in the photos taken by others. Thus, self-enhancing misperceptions may support selfie-takers’ positive evaluations of their selfies, revealing notable biases in self-perception.

In the Eye of the Betrothed: Perceptual Downgrading of Attractive Alternative Romantic Partners

People in monogamous relationships can experience a conflict when they interact with an attractive individual. They may have a desire to romantically pursue the new person, while wanting to be faithful to their partner. How do people manage the threat that attractive alternatives present to their relationship goals? We suggest that one way people defend their relationships against attractive individuals is by perceiving the individual as less attractive. In two studies, using a novel visual matching paradigm, we found support for a perceptual downgrading effect. People in relationships perceived threatening attractive individuals as less attractive than did single participants. The effect was exacerbated among participants who were highly satisfied with their current relationships. The studies provide evidence for a perceptual bias that emerges to protect long-term goals. We discuss the findings within the context of a broader theory of motivated perception in the service of self-control.

Gender differences in trusting strangers: Role of the target's gender

Previous findings on gender differences in the behaviors of individuals, including trusting behaviors, are inconsistent. A criticism is that these studies neglect contextual factors. The present study aims to examine how the target's gender, as a primary context factor, influences the trusting behavior of individuals in one survey and two experimental situations. Results indicate that people tend to trust strangers of the opposite gender more than those of the same gender in mixed-gender situations. Furthermore, females trust females much more than males trust males. The results help people understand that when talking about gender differences in interpersonal situations, the gender identity of target persons should be considered. These findings are somewhat in conflict with those of previous studies conducted in Western cultures, and suggest that culture should also be explored in future studies on gender differences in interpersonal relationships.