Abstract
Trustworthiness impressions are fundamental social judgments with far-reaching consequences in many aspects of society, including in criminal justice, leadership selection and partner preferences. Thus far, most research has focused on facial characteristics that make a face individually appear more or less trustworthy. However, in everyday life, faces are not always perceived in isolation but are often encountered in crowds. It has been proposed that we deal with the large amount of facial information in a group by extracting summary statistics of the crowd, a phenomenon called ensemble perception. Prior research showed that ensemble perception occurs for various facial features, such as emotional expression, facial identity, and attractiveness. Here, we
investigated whether observers can integrate the level of trustworthiness from multiple faces to extract an average impression of the crowd. Across four studies, participants were presented with crowds of faces and were asked to report their average level of trustworthiness with an adjustment (Experiment
36) and a rating task (Experiments 2 and 3). Participants were able to extract an ensemble perception of trustworthiness impressions from multiple faces. Moreover, observers were able to form a summary statistic of trustworthiness impressions from a group of faces as quickly as 250 ms (Experiment 4). Taken together, these results demonstrate that ensemble perception can occur at the
level of impressions of trustworthiness. Thus, these critical social judgements not only occur for individual faces but are also integrated into a unique ensemble impression of crowds. Our findings contribute to the development of a more ecological approach to the study of trust impressions, since they provide an understanding of trustworthiness judgements not only on an individual level, but on a much broader social group level. Furthermore, our results drive forward new theory because they demonstrate for the first time that ensemble representations cover a broad range of phenomenon than previously recognized, including complex high-level facial trait judgements such as trustworthiness
impressions.
investigated whether observers can integrate the level of trustworthiness from multiple faces to extract an average impression of the crowd. Across four studies, participants were presented with crowds of faces and were asked to report their average level of trustworthiness with an adjustment (Experiment
36) and a rating task (Experiments 2 and 3). Participants were able to extract an ensemble perception of trustworthiness impressions from multiple faces. Moreover, observers were able to form a summary statistic of trustworthiness impressions from a group of faces as quickly as 250 ms (Experiment 4). Taken together, these results demonstrate that ensemble perception can occur at the
level of impressions of trustworthiness. Thus, these critical social judgements not only occur for individual faces but are also integrated into a unique ensemble impression of crowds. Our findings contribute to the development of a more ecological approach to the study of trust impressions, since they provide an understanding of trustworthiness judgements not only on an individual level, but on a much broader social group level. Furthermore, our results drive forward new theory because they demonstrate for the first time that ensemble representations cover a broad range of phenomenon than previously recognized, including complex high-level facial trait judgements such as trustworthiness
impressions.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 105540 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Cognition |
| Volume | 239 |
| Early online date | 19 Jul 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Oct 2023 |
Bibliographical note
**Please leave the subtitle in the title - it's causing issues in ORCID if they are split into two fields. JA**We thank R. Chakravarthi for his helpful advice and comments on an earlier version of the manuscript, and T. Burton for help in data collection. This research was supported by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project Grant 220101026. The data reported in the present manuscript were presented at ECVP conference 2022 and at Plymouth EPS meeting 2023. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
Keywords
- Trustworthiness
- Ensemble perception
- Summary statistics
Access to Document
- Marini_etal_C_Three's_A_Crowd_VoR
© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).