Effect of Gaze on Personal Space: A Japanese–German Cross-Cultural Study

In East Asian cultures, people maintain larger interpersonal distances than in European or American cultures. We investigated whether a preference for averted gaze might be responsible for this difference. Typically, when measuring interpersonal distance, participants are asked to maintain eye contact. This request might bias findings due to cultural differences in the interpretation of direct gaze. We had Japanese and German participants adjust preferred interpersonal distance in a standardized laboratory task, using averaged faces with straight-ahead or averted gaze direction. In line with previous findings, Japanese participants preferred overall larger interpersonal distances, and fema…

On the mystery of fractals in Arts – why are Pollock's drip paintings valued so highly?

Cross-ethnic assessment of body weight and height on the basis of faces

Abstract Previous research has revealed a strong relationship between mere visual facial cues and body weight. They can be exploited to validly judge the weight of the human body. We tested to what extent observers are able to judge body weight and height on the basis of same-ethnicity and different-ethnicity faces. Caucasian and Asian observers saw Caucasian and Asian faces and estimated the person’s weight and height – merely on the basis of greyscale photographs of the face. These height and weight estimates were influenced by ethnocentric specifics of familiar face proportion and face–body relationship. Own-ethnicity weight estimations showed higher accuracy than foreign-ethnicity estim…

Do happy faces really modulate liking for Jackson Pollock art and statistical fractal noise images?

Flexas et al. (2013) demonstrated that happy faces increase preference for abstract art if seen in short succession. We could not replicate their findings. In our first experiment, we tested whether valence, saliency or arousal of facial primes can modulate liking of Jackson Pollock art crops. In the second experiment, the emphasis was on testing another type of abstract visual stimuli which possess similar low-level image features: statistical fractal noise images. Pollock crops were rated significantly higher when primed with happy faces in contrast to neutral faces, but not differently to the no-prime condition. Findings of our study suggest that affective priming with happy faces may be…