ABSTRACT

Research on facial attractiveness and face recognition has produced contradictory results that we believe are rooted in methodological limitations. Three experiments evaluated the hypothesis that facial attractiveness and face recognition are positively and linearly related. We also expected that social status would moderate the attractiveness effect. Attractive faces were recognized with very high accuracy compared to less attractive faces. We specified two estimates of facial distinctiveness (generalized and idiosyncratic) and demonstrated that the attractiveness effect on face recognition was not due to distinctiveness. This solves the long-standing problem that because facial attractiveness and distinctiveness are naturally confounded, construct validity is compromised. There was no support for the prediction, based on meta-analysis, that females would outperform males in face recognition. The attractiveness effect was so strong that gender effects were precluded. Methodological prescriptions to enhance internal, construct, and statistical conclusion validity in face recognition paradigms are presented.

摘要

关于面部吸引力和面部识别的研究产生了相互矛盾的结果，我们认为这些结果根源于方法学上的局限性。三个实验评估了面部吸引力和面部识别正相关且线性相关的假设。我们还期望社会地位会缓和吸引力效应。与不那么吸引人的面孔相比，人们认为吸引人的面孔具有很高的准确性。我们指定了两种面部独特性的估计值（广义和特质）），并证明对人脸识别的吸引力并非归因于独特性。这就解决了一个长期存在的问题，即由于面部吸引力和独特性自然地被混淆了，结构的有效性受到了损害。没有基于荟萃分析的预测，即在面部识别方面女性将胜过男性的预测没有依据。吸引力是如此之强，以至于性别效应被排除在外。提出了在面部识别范例中增强内部，结构和统计结论有效性的方法学处方。