Cited by 82Face Recognition and PerceptionFace recognition and analysisEvolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior

Deep models of superficial face judgments

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Peterson, Joshua C., Uddenberg, Stefan, Griffiths, Thomas L., Todorov, Alexander, Suchow, Jordan W.·2022·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Abstract

Significance: We quickly and irresistibly form impressions of what other people are like based solely on how their faces look. These impressions have real-life consequences ranging from hiring decisions to sentencing decisions. We model and visualize the perceptual bases of facial impressions in the most comprehensive fashion to date, producing photorealistic models of 34 perceived social and physical attributes (e.g., trustworthiness and age). These models leverage and demonstrate the utility of deep learning in face evaluation, allowing for 1) generation of an infinite number of faces that vary along these perceived attribute dimensions, 2) manipulation of any face photograph along these dimensions, and 3) prediction of the impressions any face image may evoke in the general (mostly White, North American) population.

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  • The choice of using intelligence, trustworthiness, sociability and happiness as dependent attributes for the halo effect was driven by existing literature.

    “The choice of using intelligence, trustworthiness, sociability and happiness as dependent attributes for the halo effect was driven by existing literature on this cognitive bias, such as [4,6,8,9,22,53,60–63].”

    From What is beautiful is still good: the attractiveness halo effect in the era of beauty filters (2024) · cites this paper as [62]

    In Results, “The Structure of Attribute Inferences” (page unavailable), the paper analyzes ratings of smartness, trustworthiness, happiness, and outgoingness, which is close to sociability, and compares some findings with prior work. It does not describe these four attributes as dependent measures of a halo effect or say that literature on that bias motivated their selection. (LLM, conf=0.78)

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Authors
Peterson, J. C., Uddenberg, S., Griffiths, T. L., Todorov, A., & Suchow, J. W.
Affiliations
  • Princeton University (US)
  • University of Chicago (US)
  • Stevens Institute of Technology (US)
Corresponding author
Peterson, Joshua C.
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Published
2022-04-21
Volume
119
Issue
17
Pages
e2115228119-e2115228119
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
OpenAlex
W4224222182
Cited by
82
References
5
Citations by year
2026: 13 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 10
FWCI
8.90
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Knowledge@UChicago (University of Chicago) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • University of Chicago
Funders
  • Princeton University (100006734)
  • UChicago | University of Chicago Booth School of Business (100007618)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Face recognition and analysis
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
Keywords
face perception, deep generative models, trait inference, trustworthiness, age estimation, adiposity, synthetic face generation, inter-rater reliability
MeSH terms
Attitude, Face, Facial Expression, Humans, Judgment, Social Perception, Trust

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