Abstract
Studies in social perception traditionally use as stimuli frontal portrait photographs. It turns out, however, that 2D frontal depiction may not fully capture the entire morphological diversity of facial features. Recently, 3D images started to become increasingly popular, but whether their perception differs from the perception of 2D has not been systematically studied as yet. Here we investigated congruence in the perception of portrait, left profile, and 360° rotation photographs. The photographs were obtained from 45 male athletes under standardized conditions. In two separate studies, each set of images was rated for formidability (portraits by 62, profiles by 60, and 360° rotations by 94 raters) and attractiveness (portraits by 195, profiles by 176, and 360° rotations by 150 raters) on a 7-point scale. The ratings of the stimuli types were highly intercorrelated (for formidability all rs > 0.8, for attractiveness all rs > 0.7). Moreover, we found no differences in the mean ratings between the three types of stimuli, neither in formidability, nor in attractiveness. Overall, our results clearly suggest that different facial views convey highly overlapping information about structural facial elements of an individual. They lead to congruent assessments of formidability and attractiveness, and a single angle view seems sufficient for face perception research.
Highlights
When artists create portraits, they rarely depict a full frontal view of the face of a given sitter
All athletes were from the Czech Republic. They were invited via social media advertisements, leaflets distributed at domestic MMA tournaments, gyms, and with the assistance of Mixed Martial Arts Association Czech Republic (MMAA)
We 360◦ of Facial Perception have used mean formidability ratings given to the individual stimuli separately by male and female raters
Summary
They rarely depict a full frontal view of the face of a given sitter. Instead, they tend to portray people in some degree of profile, emphasizing one cheek and dimensionality of a face (Murphy, 1994). That in our daily lives we experience faces from multiple angles, it is far from certain that a frontal view is the optimal depiction and several studies even suggested that an individual’s appearance can significantly vary depending on the viewing angle (Rule et al, 2009; Jenkins et al, 2011; Tigue et al, 2012; Koscinski and Zalewska, 2017; Sutherland et al, 2017). Danel et al (2018) reported only a moderate correlation in sexually dimorphic features between lateral and frontal facial configuration in both men and women. A single frontal view could potentially obscure relevant visual cues used in assessing certain dimensions (e.g., determinants of facial masculinity, such as protrusion of the brow ridge and angularity of the jaw), reducing judgment accuracy
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