Many of us worry about corruption amongst political elites, but could it be possible to actually recognize it in their faces? In a pretty creative study, a team of psychologists from the California Institute of Technology sought to explore whether people could detect evidence of corruption by government officials by providing them with pictures of…
Read MoreFacial Age and Recognition
Sometimes it is very important to evaluate age based on someone’s face alone, but this can be quite tricky. This is actually a surprisingly pressing issue as age is relevant in all sorts of commercial, social, or political contexts. While it seems intuitive that we should be able to recognize people’s ages pretty easily, this…
Read MoreThreat in the Golden Years
As we age, we tend to look more fondly on the world and on our memories, but does that mean we can’t detect threat? While a great deal of research indicates that older individuals tend to focus on pleasurable or non-threatening aspects of experience and memories, it is unclear whether this means they are less…
Read MoreHow to Know if an Angry Face is Threatening
While it may be tricky to say if an angry face is threatening, our brain may already be deciding for us. This may sound far-fetched, but as Dr. Harald Schupp and a team of researchers found in 2004, we are hardwired on an evolutionary level to experience a fear response upon detecting perceived threat in…
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