UP Date » Psychology

The camera never lies – or does it?

admin — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 10:56:45 +0000

Physical attractiveness might be determined by the way people move their faces and alter their voices, instead of by the way they look.

A new study will examine whether facial attractiveness is determined by fixed aspects that humans cannot change, such as symmetry of the face, or whether it is to do with changing expressions and variation of voice.

Dr Ed Morrison, an evolutionary psychologist from the University of Portsmouth has won £94,000 funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to carry out the research.

Dr Morrison said that previous studies of facial attractiveness have been limited to static images, whereas real faces are dynamic and expressive.

He said: “The old expression ‘the camera never lies’ might be proved wrong. There is a widespread assumption that photographs can capture the entirety of facial attractiveness but I want to challenge this belief by proving that facial movement and vocal variability are also important. There is already evidence to suggest that the same face might not be similarly attractive in a picture and a video.
The camera never lies – or does it?

“Attractiveness is important in areas such as romantic partnerships but also for non-romantic friendships, and in more surprising cases such as hiring, voting and jury decisions. Attractive people are often treated more favourably and are assumed to do better in life.

“Therefore understanding the basis of facial attractiveness judgements is crucial because it influences so many face-to-face interactions.”

Dr Morrison predicts that people will change their facial movement and alter their voice when they are interacting with a person they are attracted to. His research will allow him to quantify exactly how much attractiveness can be changed, and how much cannot.

“I expect men and women will change the way their faces move to increase their appeal to the opposite sex. The face is where we exhibit some of our most explicit signals – it’s the human equivalent of the peacock’s tail. A smile might be fairly easy to interpret but there are more subtle messages going on all the time.”

Dr Morrison will record faces in speed-dating scenarios and then use computer software to produce animations of their facial movement. Using this motion-tracking technique he will then be able to isolate dynamic information based on real people but whose shape has been standardised and stripped of any other distinguishing qualities

Psychology experts win £1m research funds

admin — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 09:21:55 +0000

Psychology experts at the University of Portsmouth have won £1m in grants to study human and animal behaviour – a 100 per cent increase on last year.

The department has a research staff of 30 who study subjects as varied as detecting deception; great ape behaviour; football cheats; false memory syndrome; autism; and understanding emotion, among many others.

The £1m in grant wins from prestigious research councils and charities comes at a time of shrinking research budgets in most universities and establishes Portsmouth as a leading group of academics in their field.

Head of department, Sherria Hoskins, said: “I am thrilled our researchers have been so successful in winning crucial funding, a 100 per cent increase on last year, at a time when research budgets are shrinking.

“Portsmouth is winning research funding against the odds because of its unique groups of researchers in key areas: Forensic Psychology; Cultural Psychology, Communication and Ecological Psychology; Study of Emotion and Engagement; Evolutionary and Comparative Psychology.

“In each group we have both internationally renowned and up-coming researchers collaborating on innovative, relevant and cutting-edge research. As well as our own high-fliers, our specialist research centres include renowned academics from other universities around the world which adds to the vibrant and compelling nature of the work going on here.

“Results from this research are fed into high-level publications, conferences and, of course, into our lectures which is one of the reasons we are so popular with students. In second and third years, undergraduate students get a chance to help collect data and many of them then get the research bug and stay on to do postgraduate research with us.”

The department’s mission is to encourage high quality, pioneering research in a number of specialised areas which underpin all its teaching and knowledge transfer activities. Students can study on two undergraduate courses or one of three Master’s level courses.

The department houses specialist laboratories and facilities, hosts a weekly seminar series and visiting speaker programme, and conferences and workshops organised by the Research Centres and Groups.

Happy extraverts are more creative

admin — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:32:53 +0000

Outgoing people who are in a good mood are significantly more creative than people who keep themselves to themselves, according to a new study.

In the first study to examine links between personality type, mood and performance, a psychologist at the University of Portsmouth found extravert people in a good mood are the most creative thinkers.

Introverts on the other hand are no more creative whether they are in a good or neutral mood.

Dr Lorenzo Stafford, of the psychology department, said his results showed personality and mood play a vital role in creativity.

Extraverts are likely to be more successful at creative tasks because they have a higher than average level of dopamine, the ‘happiness chemical’, in their brains than introverts and this chemical floods the brain at even higher doses when a person is in a good mood, according to Dr Stafford.

“The more outgoing a person is the more active their dopamine system is and a positive mood increases dopamine activity even further in many parts of the brain. It’s effectively a combination of these two things I would suggest leads to greater activity in certain areas of the brain controlling mental ability,” he said.

“This is interesting in itself because it demonstrates that it is the combination of the extravert personality-type in a positive mood which encourages more creative performance, and not simply positive mood alone.”

Dopamine occurs naturally in the brain and affects a range of behaviour including mood, sleep, reward, learning and movement.

Dr Stafford’s research was published recently in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

He said: “This is the first study to investigate how personality type and positive mood affect the brain’s ability to carry out mental – especially creative – tasks and the results are fascinating.

“Previous studies have shown that people in a good mood perform better overall at creativity tasks but finding that character type also influences creativity has added a whole new dimension.

“I hope these results will open the door for more research into how personality influences the mind.”

Eighty-six people took part in the study ranging in age from 18 to 53 years. Participants completed a questionnaire to determine their personality-type then listened to different types of music to put them into a good or neutral mood before completing a word association test, a response test and a memory test.

The word association test was used to assess participants’ creative ability. Subjects were given three words and had to find a common word that can be used to form a new word or phrase. For example ‘horn’ would be the solution for the words ‘french’, ‘car’ and ‘shoe’. Extraverts’ scores virtually doubled in a positive compared to a negative mood, whereas introverts hardly changed at all.

Great apes ‘play’ tag to keep competitive advantage

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:58:30 +0000

Gorillas hit-and-run in ‘games’ of tag in the same way humans do and for the same reason – to keep their competitive advantage, a new study has found.

It is the first study to show apes, like humans, will hit a playmate then run in order to try to get away with the upper hand.

The research was carried out by behavioural biologist Dr Marina Davila Ross of the University of Portsmouth and colleagues lead author Edwin van Leeuwen from the Free University of Amsterdam and Dr Elke Zimmerman from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Germany. The paper is published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

The research is the first to consider if animals respond to unfair situations in a natural social setting. Previous studies have all been carried out in laboratories.

Dr Davila Ross said: “This study shows a new opportunistic side to apes.

“Our findings on gorilla play show important similarities with the children’s game of tag. Not only did the gorillas in our study hit their playmates and then run away chased by their playmates, but they also switched their roles when hit so the chaser became the chased and vice versa.

“Experimental research has already demonstrated that animals with the disadvantage in an unfair situation show an aversion to the unfairness so with that knowledge and our own study we can conclude that humans are not unique in their ability to change their behaviour in social situations depending on whether they have the advantage or disadvantage in an unfair situation.

Scientists cannot categorically state that gorillas play tag but those observed show the same behaviour as humans.

Dr Davila Ross said such unfair play behaviours are likely to be valuable because they allow apes – and humans – to test the limits of what is acceptable behaviour and to test their peers and even their parents.

She said: “This study is the first to empirically show that apes use play to explore the ramifications of unfair social situations.”

The study also revealed that a hard hit resulted in a bigger reaction than a gentle hit, which was likely to be ignored.

The researchers studied the behaviour of great apes at play because their behaviour is less likely to be affected by the strengths and ranks of the competitors as they would be in a serious context, such as interactions related to food.

Dr Davila Ross said it was likely that the lessons learned in play fighting helped apes deal with real conflict, and that by ‘role-playing’ the chaser and the chased the apes would develop more refined and sophisticated communication skills. The study indicated that these chase roles of the gorillas were distinct with the ones doing the chasing predominantly showing a play face and hitting the other ones once they reach them.

Dr Davila Ross is an expert in primate behaviour with special interest in play and laughter and a research fellow in Portsmouth’s psychology department. She and colleagues studied videos of 21 gorillas from six colonies play fighting in five European zoos. The videos on these specific chase behaviours were filmed and collected by Dr Davila Ross over a period of three years.

Ferocious teeth baring is really just a smile

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:23:04 +0000

The people of the Caribbean whose art depicted bared teeth were misunderstood by Europeans 500 years ago and far from being frighteningly aggressive, were actually depicting a smile, according to scientists.

The ‘devil grimace’ was frequently seen by early visitors carved on to wooden seats and incised into shells worn as bracelets and necklaces. The bared-teeth motif was widely reported by Europeans as hostile, anti-Christian, devilish and frightening.

But new research suggests these early interpretations of the bared-teeth motif or ‘grimace’ which inspired subsequent interpretations were wrong all along.

The research, based on the Taino culture of the Greater Antilles in the pre-Columbian Caribbean, is published by Dr Bridget Waller, of the University of Portsmouth’s Department of Psychology, and Dr Alice Samson, of Leiden University, the Netherlands, in the latest issue of Current Anthropology.

Waller said: “The Taino used the bared-teeth motif as a signal of affiliation and benign intent. It was most likely their version of depicting a smile.”

The first European visitors to the Bahamas, Cuba and Hispaniola in the late 1400s were the first to describe the bared-teeth expression they saw as the ‘devil grimace’. Some called it an abominable expression, deformed and ferocious and associated with malevolent deities who provoked fear and needed to be appeased.

Samson and Waller believe that these early chroniclers interpreted what they saw through a European, Christian point of view and had little or no understanding of the social context in which the expression was used.

The scientists examined human and primate smiling in an evolutionary context in order to better understand the meaning of the bared-teeth motif. “Our understanding of the social function of the human smile has increased enormously in the light of comparative data from other primate species,” said Waller who is a lecturer in evolutionary psychology and specialises in primate behaviour.

She said that the bared teeth display is common among social primates such as rhesus monkeys and chimpanzees, where depending on the species, baring teeth can be anything from a sign of submission or uncertainty to outright happiness.

She said: “Exposed and clenched teeth are not common features of aggression. Studies of facial expression in human and non-human primates have shown that the bared-teeth expression is used in social contexts as an unambiguous signal of non-aggression, affiliation and benign intent. Regardless of the specific context, baring teeth is most probably about social bonding.”

Anger and aggression, the scientists say, are characterised by widened eyes, tensed lower lids and furrowed brows. The prototypical human expression where the teeth are exposed and the jaw is not dropped is the smile.

The scientists say that the bared teeth motif is in fact a much more accurate depiction of a smile than the caricatured upturned curve commonly used as shorthand for a smile.

* Images courtesy of report authors, Lisa Parr, and Menno Hoogland, Museo del Hombre, Dominica respectively.

Helping police with their enquiries – exploring human memory

admin — Tue, 11 May 2010 11:10:44 +0000

A forensic psychologist from the University of Portsmouth is taking part in a groundbreaking new BBC series which examines our powers of recall as witnesses to violent crime.

Dr Becky Milne advised makers of Eyewitness, a three-part series on BBC 2 which began on Sunday evening, that examines how the human memory works. The basis of the programme is that many of us will be a witness to a violent crime in our lifetime but recalling the event to the police is not as easy as we think because our own memory plays tricks on us.

The series also demonstrates how police procedures are being improved through liaison with specialist academic researchers.

Dr Milne, who is the Director of the new Centre for Forensic Interviewing at the University’s Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, was one of the academic advisors on the series. She is a regular advisor to the police and specialises in training officers on interview technique and how to obtain the best information from eye-witnesses.

She said: “Research reveals that the process of interviewing a witness about their recollection requires specific techniques in itself which interviewing officers can learn. There are ways of asking questions which encourage witnesses to give more detail and allow the police to piece together what happened.

“Psychological research has provided the police with another set of tools to help them do their job.”

The three-part programme uses a combination of drama, secret filming, psychological tests and interviews to show the difference between what witnesses think happened and what actually took place.

Ten members of the public, who believe they are simply volunteering to take part in a memory research exercise, become bystanders to two violent mock crimes set up by the production team using actors and secret cameras to film proceedings. They must rely on their powers of recall to help Greater Manchester Police piece together events in the police investigation – and discover for themselves how unreliable their own memories can be.

Psychologists unpick the witnesses’ vulnerable areas of memory and expert interviewers outline the development of techniques used to draw out information in today’s sophisticated police interview.

Greater Manchester Police, which gave the series unprecedented access to its criminal investigation procedures, treats each crime scenario as if it were real, testing its own interview techniques and piecing together what officers think happened.

Dr Milne said: “In the last few years the police have embraced academic research after it has proved time and time again to be an effective tool in helping to them to constantly improve their techniques for fighting crime. The programme is a fascinating insight into how specialist expert research carried out by universities is having an effect in real life.”

The series, narrated by TV’s Philip Glennister, was produced in partnership with The Open University whose Dr Graham Pike is an eyewitness expert and was one of two other academic advisors to the series.

He said that eye witness identifications are a crucial factor in both securing convictions and overturning them, but that memories are incredibly fragile: “However fallible human memory is, it’s often the only thing police have to go on and many legal verdicts have been decided on the basis of witness testimony. But our recollection of what happened in the crime and who committed it are not as sound as you might think and in the past, eyewitness accounts have resulted in innocent people being jailed.”

Professor Martin Conway, a cognitive psychologist from the University of Leeds, was the third academic advisor on the series which continues next Sunday 25th April.

Eyewitness is part of the BBC’s focus on science this year. The first of three programmes aired on Sunday 18 April on BBC Two. You can watch it again at the BBC’s iPlayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00s6b06/Eyewitness_Episode_1/

Listen to an interview with Dr Becky Milne about techniques she has taught the police for getting the most out of eye-witnesses:

Find out more about your own capabilities with online tests and a mock-crime video and ID parade at www.open2.net/eyewitness.”

Fertile women attracted to flirty men

admin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:18:14 +0000

Polishing up your flirting skills could give you the edge over a more attractive rival when it comes to finding a mate. A new study shows that women find flirtatious men more attractive during the most fertile period of their monthly cycle.

Research by evolutionary psychologist, Dr Edward Morrison of the University of Portsmouth, found that during ovulation women have an increased preference for flirtatious facial expressions.

Dr Morrison said: “It demonstrates that attractiveness is not necessarily a fixed property of the face. By changing the way the face moves we may be able to increase our appeal to the opposite sex.”

Published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour, and funded by Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the study describes how researchers produced several animated facial models whose movement was based on real people but whose shape had been standardised and stripped of any other distinguishing

qualities. These were rated on a flirtatiousness scale by 16 women.

A separate group of 47 women were then asked which of the faces they found most attractive by rating them on a scale of one to seven. In fertile phases of the menstrual cycle women consistently preferred the faces which had been categorised as more flirtatious.

By mapping points on the faces to measure their level of movement, researchers revealed that most of the women preferred the faces that were more animated. But the degree of movement was not the exclusive factor, leading researchers to conclude that women recognise specific ‘mating-relevant’ social cues.

Dr Morrison said: “The face is where we exhibit our most explicit signals – it’s the human equivalent of the peacock’s tail. But although a smile is fairly easy to interpret there are more subtle messages going on all the time.

“We use facial movement to interpret people’s intentions, such as whether they like us or not. This allows us to allocate our mating effort appropriately. For example, there is little point trying to chat up a person we admire if their expression indicates they are not interested.”

The research supports previous studies which have found that women’s behaviour and preferences vary during the menstrual cycle. During the period of ovulation women prefer taller men, more masculine faces and deeper male voices.

“By preferring these traits when they are more fertile, women have increased chances of passing them on to their offspring. Selecting the most favourable mate is one of the most fundamental aspects of human behaviour,” Dr Morrison said.

Psychologists believe that people meeting for the first time make their initial impressions based 55 percent on appearance and body-language, 38 percent on the style and manner of speaking and only 7 percent on what the person actually says.

Dr Morrison said: “An ability to ‘read’ and interpret the facial expressions and an awareness of what you are signalling with your own expressions could improve your chances of successful flirting.

“It’s difficult to define what constitutes flirtatiousness and much of it may be something we perceive without even realising it. But it seems that in the absence of other cues, the ‘social properties’ of facial movement influences how we judge attractiveness. If we wanted to attract someone at the Christmas party, flirting effectively may help to do so.”

Flirting techniques include laughing, smiling and making eye contact and women often flick their hair and adjust their clothes for no apparent reason. Men also make eye contact but are more likely to spread their arms and legs and touch other men, for example on the shoulder to indicate how tactile they are.

Researchers were unable to define which exact movements led the first group of women to interpret which faces were flirting.

Dr Morrison said: “Science is still a long way from discovering the magic formula for what women find attractive in a man.”