Psychology Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 8410500, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
The Brain and Mind Institute, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, N6A 5B7, Canada.
Sci Rep. 2021 Nov 26;11(1):23020. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-02380-2.
Previous research has shown an unintuitive effect of facial expression on perceived age: smiling faces are perceived as older compared to neutral faces of the same people. The aging effect of smiling (AES), which is thought to result from the presence of smile-related wrinkles around the eyes, contradicts the common belief that smiling faces should be perceived as younger, not older. Previous research, however, has focused on faces of young adults, where the absence of inherent, age-related wrinkles and other age signs is offset by the weight of the smile-related wrinkles. In a series of experiments, we tested whether the AES extends to male and female faces in older age groups. We replicated the AES in young adults (20-39) and showed that it disappeared in older adults (60-79) of both genders. For photos of middle-aged adults (40-59), however, AES was found only for male, but not for female faces, who showed fewer and less prominent smile-related wrinkles. The results suggest that a person's apparent age is perceived in a holistic manner in which age-related cues in the region of the eyes are weighted against age cues in other regions of the face.
先前的研究表明，面部表情对面部年龄感知有一个非直观的影响：与同一个人的中性表情相比，微笑的脸看起来更老。微笑的老化效应（AES）被认为是由于眼睛周围出现了与微笑相关的皱纹，这与微笑的脸应该看起来更年轻而不是更老的普遍看法相矛盾。然而，之前的研究主要集中在年轻人的脸上，他们没有内在的、与年龄相关的皱纹和其他年龄迹象，这些迹象被与微笑相关的皱纹所抵消。在一系列实验中，我们测试了 AES 是否扩展到老年组的男性和女性面部。我们在年轻成年人（20-39 岁）中复制了 AES，并表明它在两性的老年成年人（60-79 岁）中消失了。然而，对于中年成年人（40-59 岁）的照片，AES 仅在男性面部中发现，而在女性面部中则没有，因为女性面部的与微笑相关的皱纹较少且不明显。研究结果表明，一个人的明显年龄是整体感知的，眼睛区域的与年龄相关的线索与面部其他区域的年龄线索相对权衡。
