School of Psychology, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2023 Aug 14;13(1):13224. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-39902-z.
Age estimation is a perceptual task that people perform automatically and effortlessly on a daily basis. Colour has been identified as one of the facial cues that contributes to age perception. To investigate further the role of colour in age perception, we manipulated the chromatic content of facial images holistically. In Experiment 1, images were shown in colour or grey scale; in Experiment 2, images were shown with red-green contrast increased or decreased; in Experiment 3, images were shown with modified yellow-blue contrast. We examined whether the presence of chromatic information biases the perception of age and/or affects inter-observer variability in age judgements, and whether specific chromatic information affects the perception of age. We found that the same face tended to be judged as younger with increased red-green contrast compared to decreased red-green contrast, suggesting that red-green contrast directly affects age perception. Inter-observer variability in age ratings was significantly lower when participants were asked to rate colour compared with grey scale versions of images. This finding indicates that colour carries information useful cues for age estimation.
年龄估计是人们在日常生活中自动且毫不费力地进行的感知任务。颜色已被确定为有助于年龄感知的面部线索之一。为了进一步研究颜色在年龄感知中的作用，我们整体上操纵了面部图像的色度。在实验 1 中，图像以彩色或灰度显示；在实验 2 中，图像的红-绿对比度增加或减少；在实验 3 中，图像的黄-蓝对比度被修改。我们检查了是否存在色度信息会影响年龄感知和/或影响年龄判断的观察者间变异性，以及特定的色度信息是否会影响年龄感知。我们发现，与红-绿对比度降低相比，红-绿对比度增加的同一张脸往往被判断为更年轻，这表明红-绿对比度直接影响年龄感知。当要求参与者对彩色图像进行评分时，年龄评分的观察者间变异性明显低于对灰度图像评分时的变异性。这一发现表明颜色携带有用的年龄估计信息。
