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Judging body-weight from faces: The height-weight illusion
Schneider, Tobias M.; Hecht, Heiko; Carbon, Claus-Christian (2012): Judging body-weight from faces: The height-weight illusion, in: Perception, London: Pion, Jg. 41, Nr. 1, S. 121–124.
Faculty/Chair:
Author:
Title of the Journal:
Perception
ISSN:
0301-0066
Publisher Information:
Year of publication:
2012
Volume:
41
Issue:
1
Pages:
Language:
English
Abstract:
Being able to exploit features of the human face to predict health and fitness can serve as an evolutionary advantage. Surface features such as facial symmetry, averageness, and skin colour are known to influence attractiveness. We sought to determine whether observers are able to extract more complex features, namely body weight. If possible, it could be used as a predictor for health and fitness. For instance, facial adiposity could be taken to indicate a cardiovascular challenge or proneness to infections. Observers seem to be able to glean body weight information from frontal views of a face. Is weight estimation robust across different viewing angles? We showed that participants strongly overestimated body weight for faces photographed from a lower vantage point while underestimating it for faces photographed from a higher vantage point. The perspective distortions of simple facial measures (eg width-to-height ratio) that accompany changes in vantage point do not suffice to predict body weight. Instead, more complex patterns must be involved in the height ^ weight illusion.
Type:
Article
Activation date:
May 24, 2013
Permalink
https://fis.uni-bamberg.de/handle/uniba/916