What does the transmitted image of a human face tell an observer about personality traits?

Abstract

We experimentally examine the question of how adequately a person’s individual psychological characteristics can be perceived using the expression of his/her face as the basis of assessment. The research method is based on comparison between participants’ personality traits and the beholder’s assessment of individual psychological characteristics of his partner in communication on the basis of the expression of his facial image, either whole or fragmented (masked). Assessment of personality traits was carried out on the basis of R. B. Cattell’s 16-transformed scales. The participants were instructed to assess two male and two female human faces displayed on a monitor. Each image had five Variants: fully open, represented by the top, bottom, right or left side. It is shown that nearly 40% of personality traits of the ‘communicated’ participant are correctly estimated on the basis of the expression of the image of a whole face. The accuracy of estimations using the right and left halves of a facial image coincides and is indistinguishable from those of the image of a whole face. Individual psychological characteristics of a person are perceived less accurately using the lower part of a face, and worst of all using the top. No difference in the accuracy of recognition of single personality traits is discerned when viewing the whole face compared to the fragmentary image. ‘Optimism’ and ‘peculiarity’ are recognized most effectively for all types of masking and types of face; least recognized is ‘meaningfulness’. Successful assessment of the expression of the whole and fragmented facial images suggests various predictors: in perception of the whole face — high self-control as an attribute of the beholder; in perception of a horizontally partitioned face — his/her dependence on the group; in perception of a vertically partitioned face — poor social contact.