PERCEPTUAL ASYMMETRIES IN JUDGMENTS OF FACIAL ATTRACTIVENESS, AGE, GENDER, SPEECH AND EXPRESSION

Lateralization of perception of various facial attributes (age, attrac tiveness, gender, lip-reading and expression) was studied using chimae ric faces in which the sides of the face differed along one dimension (e.g. the left side was male and the right side female). Computer grap hics were used to eliminate naturally occurring physical asymmetries ( e.g. those present in the mouth during speech and spontaneous smiles) and obvious vertical mid-line joins in the photo-realistic chimaeric s timuli. Following previous studies, we found that subjects' judgements of gender and expression were influenced more by the left than the ri ght side of the face (viewer's perspective). This left of face stimulu s bias extended to judgements about facial attractiveness and facial a ge. This was not true of lip-reading stimuli; for these stimuli subjec ts were influenced more by the right than the left side of the face. T hus using free fixation, it appears possible to demonstrate in normal subjects that brain processes underlying judgements of facial speech d isplay different lateralization from the judgements of other facial di mensions. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.