Deciphering Faces: Quantifiable Visual Cues to Weight

Coetzee, Vinet; Chen, Jingying; Perrett, David I.; Stephen, Ian D.

doi:10.1068/p6560

Cited by 131 publications

(140 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…A number of studies have suggested that changes in facial shape are correlated with overall body mass and that it is possible to estimate overall body mass from the face alone 42. However, the relationship between facial shape and the BMI of the individual is weaker than is found for the equivalent torso shape change, and judgements of overall body mass based on facial cues are also less precise than judgements based on the rest of the body 42.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fixation patterns, not clinical diagnosis, predict body size over‐estimation in eating disordered women and healthy controls

Cornelissen

Hancock

et al. 2016

Intl J Eating Disorders

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ObjectiveA core feature of anorexia nervosa (AN) is an over‐estimation of body size. Women with AN have a different pattern of eye‐movements when judging bodies, but it is unclear whether this is specific to their diagnosis or whether it is found in anyone over‐estimating body size.MethodTo address this question, we compared the eye movement patterns from three participant groups while they carried out a body size estimation task: (i) 20 women with recovering/recovered anorexia (rAN) who had concerns about body shape and weight and who over‐estimated body size, (ii) 20 healthy controls who had normative levels of concern about body shape and who estimated body size accurately (iii) 20 healthy controls who had normative levels of concern about body shape but who did over‐estimate body size.ResultsComparisons between the three groups showed that: (i) accurate body size estimators tended to look more in the waist region, and this was independent of clinical diagnosis; (ii) there is a pattern of looking at images of bodies, particularly viewing the upper parts of the torso and face, which is specific to participants with rAN but which is independent of accuracy in body size estimation.DiscussionSince the over‐estimating controls did not share the same body image concerns that women with rAN report, their over‐estimation cannot be explained by attitudinal concerns about body shape and weight. These results suggest that a distributed fixation pattern is associated with over‐estimation of body size and should be addressed in treatment programs. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (Int J Eat Disord 2016; 49:507–518).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fixation patterns, not clinical diagnosis, predict body size over‐estimation in eating disordered women and healthy controls

Cornelissen

Hancock

et al. 2016

Intl J Eating Disorders

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“…BMI has been shown to correlate with fWHR [11,30] and may implicate behavioural associations. Here, we find no association between BMI and fWHR (r ¼ 0.09, p ¼ 0.35) but BMI was significantly positively correlated with dominance (r ¼ 0.22, p ¼ 0.03).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facial width-to-height ratio predicts self-reported dominance and aggression in males and females, but a measure of masculinity does not

et al. 2014

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Recently, associations between facial structure and aggressive behaviour have been reported. Specifically, the facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) is thought to link to aggression, although it is unclear whether this association is related to a specific dimension of aggression, or to a more generalized concept of dominance behaviour. Similarly, an association has been proposed between facial masculinity and dominant and aggressive behaviour, but, to date, this has not been formally tested. Because masculinity and fWHR are negatively correlated, it is unlikely that both signal similar behaviours. Here, we thus tested these associations and show that: (i) fWHR is related to both self-reported dominance and aggression; (ii) physical aggression, verbal aggression and anger, but not hostility are associated with fWHR; (iii) there is no evidence for a sex difference in associations between fWHR and aggression; and (iv) the facial masculinity index does not predict dominance or aggression. Taken together, these results indicate that fWHR, but not a measure of facial masculinity, cues dominance and specific types of aggression in both sexes.

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“…R. Soc. B 371: 20150380 provide targets for testing their relationship to health outcomes (width-to-height-ratio, perimeter-to-area ratio and cheek-tojaw-width ratio) [31]. These three measures do not necessarily capture all aspects of face shape that relate to weight perceived from faces.…”

Section: (C) Facial Adipositymentioning

confidence: 99%

Perception of health from facial cues

Henderson

Holzleitner

Talamas

et al. 2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Impressions of health are integral to social interactions, yet poorly understood. A review of the literature reveals multiple facial characteristics that potentially act as cues to health judgements. The cues vary in their stability across time: structural shape cues including symmetry and sexual dimorphism alter slowly across the lifespan and have been found to have weak links to actual health, but show inconsistent effects on perceived health. Facial adiposity changes over a medium time course and is associated with both perceived and actual health. Skin colour alters over a short time and has strong effects on perceived health, yet links to health outcomes have barely been evaluated. Reviewing suggested an additional influence of demeanour as a perceptual cue to health. We, therefore, investigated the association of health judgements with multiple facial cues measured objectively from two-dimensional and three-dimensional facial images. We found evidence for independent contributions of face shape and skin colour cues to perceived health. Our empirical findings: (i) reinforce the role of skin yellowness; (ii) demonstrate the utility of global face shape measures of adiposity; and (iii) emphasize the role of affect in facial images with nominally neutral expression in impressions of health.

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Deciphering Faces: Quantifiable Visual Cues to Weight

Cited by 131 publications

References 37 publications

Fixation patterns, not clinical diagnosis, predict body size over‐estimation in eating disordered women and healthy controls

Fixation patterns, not clinical diagnosis, predict body size over‐estimation in eating disordered women and healthy controls

Facial width-to-height ratio predicts self-reported dominance and aggression in males and females, but a measure of masculinity does not

Perception of health from facial cues

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