But it doesn't hold true for women. As the abstract of this PLOS ONE paper (open publication) says, "The ability to accurately assess the intelligence of other persons finds its place in everyday social interaction and should have important evolutionary consequences."
So the authors did an experiment to find out whether people could accurately judge intelligence from photos of other people (university students, natch), whose IQ had been measured conventionally. And they could! At least, they could judge men's intelligence well from photos, but not women's. However, "Our study revealed no relation between intelligence and either attractiveness or face shape."
The full report [PDF] can also be downloaded.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
A Man's Intelligence Shows In His Face
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 34 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(Score: 4, Funny) by middlemen on Wednesday April 02 2014, @06:01PM
Stephen Hawking !
(Score: 5, Funny) by everdred on Wednesday April 02 2014, @06:07PM
He looks super-intelligent. He looks just like Stephen Hawking!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday April 02 2014, @06:13PM
See this [plosone.org] slide from the article.
But more for the sake of discussion, aside from people with obvious defects like Downs or Fetal Alcohol syndromes, I don't think it's fair to judge intelligence by the face alone but rather the animation and range of emotion conveyed in the face. The so-called "intelligent" face on the right looks like a Mormon robot who wears that blank thousand-yard stare and shit-eating grin wherever he goes.
For what it's worth the "low-intelligence" face on the left looks exactly like mine, haha!
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday April 03 2014, @12:51AM
It sounds like bullshit anyways, since people will see what they want to see. We are pattern recognition engines after all. However, that pattern recognition also allows us to see a face in the moon, or a rabbit in the clouds.
For what it's worth though I think intelligence as well as other qualities can be judged from the eyes. Don't ask me for a scientific explanation because I don't think there is one at the moment.
A person's eyes are a window into their soul. A cliche to be sure, but I can't deny there is nothing to it either. I can just look into a woman's eyes and know how much she hates me and wants me to die in that moment...
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 02 2014, @06:20PM
I wonder if the reason it doesn't work for women is that societally we have had a bias where smart women are often considered undesirable so either evolutionarily or just by learned behavior (subconscious muscle control) women hide their intelligence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 02 2014, @06:43PM
Possibly. I was wondering this, too. I was also wondering whether putting glasses on the women would make a difference (half joking, half serious).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday April 02 2014, @07:19PM
Does a young woman control or influence or convince young men, by having the guys stare at her ... face? I'm just not seeing it (oh the pun). Its pretty rare for some young fool to take action because some woman has a great pair of nostrils.
And from observation two women in a catfight with each other seem to go for cutting commentary on the others actions or attire... weight, sometimes, or poor plastic surgery, but only if they're already run out of actions and attire to complain about.
You could also have an interesting evolutionary discussion about the likelihood of matriarchy vs patriarchy relative to inherent biological ability to mess with the mind of the other, or to be messed with. This would superficially seem to indicate evolutionary basis of a matriarchy?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday April 02 2014, @07:27PM
I hate to reply to myself but I need to rethink the matriarchy vs patriarchy.
On an individual basis your genes win if you can fool people into thinking you're an idiot and then stab them in the back. Literally or whatever, in the olden days. So that would imply on an individual scale it would help a matriarchy maintain power. And a patriarchal threat could be perceived and accurately estimated by a glance at a potential strongmans face. So this argument means it benefits a matriarchy.
On the other hand, on a group genetic success basis, a patriarchy wins if its intuitively obvious to the whole tribe who's smart and who's dumb, such that the leadership can be selected for, or given a dumb leader, he can intuitively measure a smart (therefore dangerous) opposition. So this argument means it benefits a patriarchy.
On the third hand, maybe being unable to predict the smartest and most dangerous opposition in a matriarchy means the matriarchy will always on average select for the smartest strongest leader, which doesn't help the genetic survival of the individual idiot, but does help the overall tribe become the strongest smartest tribe IF the women are running it. So this argument means it benefits the matriarchy.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 02 2014, @07:57PM
Does a young woman control or influence or convince young men, by having the guys stare at her ... face?
Considering that the fusiform face area, the part of the brain responsible for face processing in humans, is the single largest part of the visual cortex, the answer would appear to be yes.
BTW, your entire post is practically dripping with unconscious sexism. You've got a problem and I'm sure pointing it out will just make you defensive but man it is too ugly to let pass without comment.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday April 02 2014, @08:28PM
No, its conscious, you just don't like it. Thats OK. The species is stronger as a group by being able to productively exploit its differences; differences are good as long as they're not too different. A wider habitat becomes available due to variation if you want to think of it that way. For any characteristic you can measure, a species is always stronger if that characteristic is between zero and "not too large" so the odds of this particular characteristic having a coefficient of exactly zero is extremely unlikely although highly politically popular, in fact its a political necessity. If the variation coefficient were zero, we'd make a stronger species by actively working to make it not zero. Its always going to be way smaller than individual variation within a group anyway, isn't it?
The more I consider the relative tradeoffs the less convinced I am that a scientifically measurable evolved ability to gauge intelligence of men better than women would have any reasonable theoretical model correlation with patriarchy / matriarchy during evolutionary history. So here I am flip flopping again, if the input data is correct I can't decide if it proves much if anything about ancient evolved patriarchy vs matriarchy after all. But it would be a fun research project!
(Score: 2) by chromas on Thursday April 03 2014, @03:32AM
You probably missed the thread topic and I'm guessing you haven't been around too many women executing fight procedures.
(Score: 1) by Gryle on Wednesday April 02 2014, @08:38PM
I happen to like smart women, so perhaps I'm a societal step-in-the-right-direction.
Ignorance can be remedied. Stupid seems to be a permanent condition.
(Score: 1) by guises on Thursday April 03 2014, @04:33AM
No, it isn't that intelligent women are undesirable, it's that attractive women are unintelligent. At least on TV which, culturally, is the only place where it counts. TV personalities, but women especially, are not selected for their brains.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Dunbal on Wednesday April 02 2014, @06:35PM
I see the pseudoscience of phrenology is alive and well.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday April 02 2014, @07:46PM
Except in this case they could not scientifically determine what facial features indicated more intelligence. However people could identify those with higher intelligence just by looking at their face (with a statistical probability higher than chance).
When combining all the perceived low, mid, and high IQ faces into their respective groups there were distinctive features for each group. Pretty interesting!
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Thursday April 03 2014, @12:16AM
It's more like classic physiognomy [wikipedia.org] as popularised by Johann Lavater in the 18th century.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 5, Funny) by e_armadillo on Wednesday April 02 2014, @06:41PM
Now looking in a mirror is even more depressing . . .
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 5, Informative) by jcaplan on Wednesday April 02 2014, @06:41PM
Figure 4 in the paper shows the incredibly wide scatter of the data points with the correlation appearing dependent on the position of just a few points. With sample size of only 40 it is hard to be convinced of anything with this wide scatter. It is also worth noting that only on two of five of sections of the IQ test they used showed any statistically significant correlation between perceived intelligence and subsection test score for men. The authors don't ever show the graphs for the sub-test data.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jcross on Wednesday April 02 2014, @07:13PM
Yeah, the quantitative part is totally sketchy, but I find figures 2 and 3 to be the most interesting part of the paper. They show (for those who didn't RTFA) the average face warped to fit the shape of the faces judged to have the most, least, and average intelligence. This shows that even if people can't predict intelligence very well, they do have measurable common stereotypes they're using in the attempt, and the images seem to square pretty well with my own stereotypes. The "stupid" stereotypes have stronger jaws and look angrier or less happy, and I think this may say a lot about how we judge and even define intelligence. For instance the jaw thing could maybe relate to our stereotype that jocks are dumb. I actually don't think I've met a person I would call stupid, but some people's intelligence is harder to perceive than others, and I think in general people who are unhappy in a "shut down" way are unlikely to display any brilliance they may have. I mean, unless it's a strong part of your self-image to demonstrate your intelligence (as for a lot of geeks), why bother?
(Score: 4, Funny) by Nerdfest on Wednesday April 02 2014, @07:30PM
I noticed that the "highly intelligent" face on the right in figure 2 has a higher hairline than the others. As a bald guy, I completely agree with the observation. There may be some bias on my part though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 03 2014, @03:55AM
Are you sure that's the highly intelligent one? The caption under the figure says it's on the upper left...
(Score: 1) by darkfeline on Wednesday April 02 2014, @09:11PM
I would suggest that instead of trying to eyeball the data, to see which statistical tests they used and what the results of those tests say. Statistics is useful precisely because humans are so bad at analyzing such things intuitively (not that I'm saying people don't also abuse and misinterpret statistics, but that's a separate problem).
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Wednesday April 02 2014, @06:46PM
but stupidity goes straight through.
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 02 2014, @07:36PM
Is it just me, or do the smart ones look hungry and the dumb ones look well fed standing slightly further away?
This could totally mess with human perception of weight by playing proportion games.
From an evolutionary basis it doesn't make much sense, but if you live in a weight obsessed culture, then you can unconsciously assume fat dude = dumb dude on average even if normally evolutionarily the smartest dude is probably the best hunter or fisher or gatherer or whatever and therefore is probably the fattest.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Dachannien on Wednesday April 02 2014, @07:59PM
What I noticed was that the "perceived unintelligent" faces - particularly the male ones depicted in Fig. 2 - had more childlike features than the "perceived intelligent" faces. That is, all of the facial features were bunched up on the face, much like a baby.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 02 2014, @08:09PM
That's an interesting observation. Infants (healthy ones anyway) tend to have a bit of body fat to them.
So the lack of scale by zooming them all to the same size mean its a fat dude far away or a little infant up close.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Adrian Harvey on Wednesday April 02 2014, @08:02PM
Like a lot of small university studies, they have just picked voulenteers from within the university. That's ok for a preliminary investigation but you can't really extrapolate the results the way they, and especially the summary does. For starters uni students aught to be above average intelligence (or their admissions criteria suck). So you're missing a whole slab of the population here.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Wednesday April 02 2014, @08:30PM
I also wondered about that.
As far as I can see, this study needs to be renamed "A College Student's Intelligence Shows In Their Faces".
I've met many people that never attended college that would drastically skew the results of this study if included.
I also work at a university, and see a lot of stupid stuff out of the students, but overall they act pretty intelligent. What I see out of some staff is at a whole different level, however!(a MUCH lower level on avg. in positions that do not have a degree requirement)
How would introducing faces from other countries and cultures affect this study, for example?
I see a big difference between the foreign students and the USA students on campus, to further 'stir the mix'.
Instead of the dubious extrapolation, I would have liked them to run with this, or at least set it up for a new team to do so.(make it more of a long term study)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MrGuy on Wednesday April 02 2014, @09:14PM
...that DOESN'T have significant known correlations with factors that are visible from looking at a person (race, ethnicity, general affluence) and I'll be impressed that you can tell how someone might score on a test based solely on looking at their face or what they're wearing.
Regardless of whether you think IQ is racially biased as a test or their are genuine racial differences in intelligence, the correlation of race to IQ is known, significant and repeatable. And looking at someone gives a strong clue for their race and ethnicity. So you want me to be impressed you looked at someone's face and gained some insight into how they scored on the test?
(Score: 2) by naubol on Wednesday April 02 2014, @10:04PM
So, to quote Dylan Moran, "Hitler...hitler...hitler hitler hitler hitler (long drawing in of breath and sotto vocce) hitler..."
Few other thoughts...
Is nutrition a factor in the shape of the face and the resulting intelligence?
Is it a thing where people with this face shape are less intelligent because we give them less expectations?
Is it a group thing? Like one ethnic group of people have been oppressed consistently such that they are less likely to achieve their potential and this group has common facial characteristics? Or, some other process is at play so that this facial shape is correlated to poor performance on an IQ test?
The most exotic explanation seems to be that some genes produce both results, principally because it seems to be the new reality that intelligence is far more than genetics and the improbability of the idea.
Also, it could be something like spending a lot of time doing physical things creates that stronger jawline and reduces your chances at a high IQ.
Also, I wonder if this experiment will be reproduced successfully in a more rigorous way.
Austin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 02 2014, @10:15PM
Women cover their faces with so much makeup that they're unrecognizable without it. Nothing can be determined by looking at a woman's face beyond her desire for money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 03 2014, @12:23AM
Married, eh?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 03 2014, @08:10AM
Not a single mention of beards.. obviously wizards are intelligent, but what about pirates?
(Score: 2) by TK on Thursday April 03 2014, @01:58PM
The real question is the impact of soul patches, goatees, and neck beards on perceived IQ.
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum