Toward a New Approach to Cross-Cultural Distinctiveness and Typicality of Human Faces: The Cross-Group Typicality/ Distinctiveness Metric.

ABSTRACT: In the present research, we took advantage of geometric morphometrics to propose a data-driven method for estimating the individual degree of facial typicality/distinctiveness for cross-cultural (and other cross-group) comparisons. Looking like a stranger in one's home culture may be somewhat stressful. The same facial appearance, however, might become advantageous within an outgroup population. To address this fit between facial appearance and cultural setting, we propose a simple measure of distinctiveness/typicality based on position of an individual along the axis connecting the facial averages of two populations under comparison. The more distant a face is from its ingroup population mean toward the outgroup mean the more distinct it is (vis-à-vis the ingroup) and the more it resemble

SUBMITTER: Kleisner K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6365443 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature