Short Lindsey A, Mondloch Catherine J, McCormick Cheryl M, Carré Justin M, Ma Ruqian, Fu Genyue, Lee Kang
Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada.
Evol Hum Behav. 2012 Mar 1;33(2):121-129. doi: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2011.07.002. Epub 2011 Nov 4.
The human face provides a wealth of information pertaining to the internal state and life-stage history of an individual. Facial width-to-height ratio is a size-independent sexually dimorphic trait, and estimates of aggression made by untrained adults judging own-race faces were positively associated with both facial width-to-height ratio and actual aggressive behavior. Given the significant adaptive value of accurately detecting aggressiveness based on facial appearance, we hypothesized that aggression estimates made by adults and 8-year-olds would be highly correlated with male facial width-to-height ratio even for a face category with which they had minimal experience-other-race faces. For each of the four race and age groups, estimates of aggression were positively correlated with facial width-to-height ratio irrespective of rating own-or other-race faces. Overall, the correlations between facial width-to-height ratio and ratings of aggression were stronger for adults than for children. Sensitivity to facial width-to-height ratio appears to be part of an evolved mechanism designed to detect threats in the external environment. This mechanism is likely broadly tuned and functions independently of experience.
人类的面部提供了大量与个体内部状态和生命阶段历史相关的信息。面部宽高比是一种与尺寸无关的性别二态性特征，未经训练的成年人对本种族面孔的攻击性评估与面部宽高比和实际攻击行为均呈正相关。鉴于基于面部外观准确检测攻击性具有显著的适应性价值，我们推测，即使对于成年人和8岁儿童经验最少的面孔类别——其他种族面孔，他们对攻击性的评估也会与男性面部宽高比高度相关。对于四个种族和年龄组中的每一组，无论评估的是本种族还是其他种族的面孔，攻击性评估都与面部宽高比呈正相关。总体而言，成年人中面部宽高比与攻击性评分之间的相关性比儿童更强。对面部宽高比的敏感性似乎是一种进化机制的一部分，该机制旨在检测外部环境中的威胁。这种机制可能具有广泛的适应性，且独立于经验发挥作用。
