Aspects of Facial Contrast Decrease with Age and Are Cues for Age Perception

94Citations
Citations of this article
110Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

Abstract

Age is a primary social dimension. We behave differently toward people as a function of how old we perceive them to be. Age perception relies on cues that are correlated with age, such as wrinkles. Here we report that aspects of facial contrast-the contrast between facial features and the surrounding skin-decreased with age in a large sample of adult Caucasian females. These same aspects of facial contrast were also significantly correlated with the perceived age of the faces. Individual faces were perceived as younger when these aspects of facial contrast were artificially increased, but older when these aspects of facial contrast were artificially decreased. These findings show that facial contrast plays a role in age perception, and that faces with greater facial contrast look younger. Because facial contrast is increased by typical cosmetics use, we infer that cosmetics function in part by making the face appear younger. © 2013 Porcheron et al.

References Powered by Scopus

Perception of age in adult Caucasian male faces: Computer graphic manipulation of shape and colour information

355Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Romantic Red: Red Enhances Men's Attraction to Women

298Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Perceiving Character in Faces. The Impact of Age-Related Craniofacial Changes on Social Perception

288Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Cited by Powered by Scopus

The effect of aging in primary human dermal fibroblasts

123Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Facial age affects emotional expression decoding

95Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Cosmetics alter biologically-based factors of beauty: Evidence from facial contrast

67Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Porcheron, A., Mauger, E., & Russell, R. (2013). Aspects of Facial Contrast Decrease with Age and Are Cues for Age Perception. PLoS ONE, 8(3). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0057985

Readers' Seniority

Tooltip

PhD / Post grad / Masters / Doc 44

61%

Researcher 14

19%

Professor / Associate Prof. 10

14%

Lecturer / Post doc 4

6%

Readers' Discipline

Tooltip

Psychology 43

57%

Medicine and Dentistry 15

20%

Agricultural and Biological Sciences 11

15%

Computer Science 6

8%

Article Metrics

Tooltip
Mentions
Blog Mentions: 2
News Mentions: 2
Social Media
Shares, Likes & Comments: 2

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free