Masks wearing off: Changing effects of face masks on trustworthiness over time.

During the global COVID-19 pandemic, the wearing of face masks became a common practice, raising questions about how masks affect perceptions of and behaviour towards others. Numerous studies have explored the impact of face masks on perceptions of trustworthiness, but results have been mixed and it remains unclear whether masks influence perceptions via their social meaning or their effects on facial appearance. In this study, Australian participants (= 363) rated a series of faces which were either masked, unmasked, or occluded by a non-mask object (computer) in terms of perceived trustworthiness in 2020, 2022, or 2023.

Knowledge of identity reduces variability in trait judgements across face images.

Faces vary from image to image, eliciting different judgements of traits and often different judgements of identity. Knowledge that two face images belong to the same person facilitates the processing of identity information across images, but it is unclear if this also applies to trait judgements. In this preregistered study, participants ( = 100) rated the same 340 face images on perceived trustworthiness, dominance, or attractiveness presented in randomised order and again later presented in sets consisting of the same identity.

Image variability and face matching.

This study investigates whether variability in perceived trait judgements disrupts our ability to match unfamiliar faces. In this preregistered study, 174 participants completed a face matching task where they were asked to indicate whether two ambient face images belonged to the same person or different people (17,748 total data points). Participants completed 51 match trials consisting of images of the same person that differed substantially on one trait (either trustworthiness, dominance or attractiveness) with minimal differences in the alternate traits.

Within-Person Variability in First Impressions From Faces.

Perceptions of an individual can change dramatically across different images of their face. Questions remain as to whether some traits are more sensitive to image variability than others. To investigate this issue, we constructed a database of 340 naturalistic images consisting of 20 photos of 17 individuals.

To which world regions does the valence-dominance model of social perception apply?

Over the past 10 years, Oosterhof and Todorov's valence-dominance model has emerged as the most prominent account of how people evaluate faces on social dimensions. In this model, two dimensions (valence and dominance) underpin social judgements of faces. Because this model has primarily been developed and tested in Western regions, it is unclear whether these findings apply to other regions.