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Do We Look at a Threatening Person’s Face? The Relationship Between Perception and Observation of Walking Strangers
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Jess Hall,
Alex Jones
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
Swansea University Author:
Alex Jones
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© Experimental Psychology Society 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
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DOI (Published version): 10.1177/17470218251406631
Abstract
Person perception research predominantly focuses on faces as stimuli, and less attention is paid to full-body, moving, stimulus people. Nor how our social perceptions might affect the way we observe unknown people. Here, we present two exploratory studies and a registered third. In Study One, 27 jud...
| Published in: | Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology |
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| ISSN: | 1747-0218 1747-0226 |
| Published: |
SAGE Publications
2025
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| Online Access: |
Check full text
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa71203 |
| Abstract: |
Person perception research predominantly focuses on faces as stimuli, and less attention is paid to full-body, moving, stimulus people. Nor how our social perceptions might affect the way we observe unknown people. Here, we present two exploratory studies and a registered third. In Study One, 27 judges observed 12 videos of female targets walking and rated ‘threat’, ‘attractiveness’ and ‘masculinity’. In Study Two, 30 judges observed 22 male and female targets in the same format with the same ratings. The registered Study Three included 48 judges observing the same 22 stimuli. Judges had their attention to target faces recorded with an eyetracker. In all studies time spent observing the targets’ heads decreased over time. In Study One, ratings were associated with time spent observing the targets’ head and these effects changed with observation over time. In Study Two no effects were found. Study Three found weak effects opposing Study One. We find overall meta-evidence of masculinity and attractiveness affecting attention to the faces of unknown others, but the individual study findings were highly inconsistent. Our findings draw attention to the risks of interpreting from an individual study and reflect the benefit of internal registered replications. |
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| Keywords: |
gait, threat, attractiveness, masculinity-femininity, eyetracking, person perception |
| College: |
Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences |