Expressions in Photographs can Be Misleading: Study
Our facial expression in photographs paints a false image of us, finds a study.
Face is the index of the mind, reflecting emotions and feelings that can help predict our personality traits and temperament. Various psychological theories assert faces can help screen concrete facts about an individual. Recent findings by experts from Princeton University advise against making assumptions by just looking at a person's image or photographs. Their study holds there is no link between face and personality, therefore, expressions captured in the pictures often mislead people in having wrong impression about the person.
The researchers conducted an online survey asking participants to view headshots of people shot in similar lighting with slight variations in expression and give their ratings characteristics like meanness, attractiveness, cunning, intelligence, trustworthiness and creativity. The study asked subjects to rate pictures on the pretext of having a poll on whether a person in picture qualifies for a role of villain or in political office or simply for a website. All pictures were shown only for a few seconds.
It was observed that the respondents' gave different rating for different pictures of the same persons posing different expressions. These results indicate a single photographic image does not accurately reveal all qualities and attributes of a person. Making decisions based on visual images can have implications in our daily lives. Facial expressions unconsciously change with mood, emotional fluctuations and thought processing that portray different emotional state.
"This research has important ramifications for how we think about these impressions and how we test whether they are accurate," said Alexander Todorov, study author and researcher from the Princeton University in a news release.
"The findings suggest that the images we post online can affect us in unexpected, and undesired, ways, subtly biasing other people's decisions."
The authors believe in further investigation to examine how pictures of same person with drastic changes in lighting, head positioning and expression influence people to formulate variety of opinions.
More information is available online in the journal Psychological Sciences.
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