Facial reconstruction of Lord of Moken

I wonder when we will start seeing facial reconstructions that make use of ancient DNA. Ancient DNA isn't very good for reconstructing facial features, but it should be quite good at reconstructing pigmentation.

Facial reconstruction for 1,400-year-old 'Lord of Morken'

The man's remains were discovered in 1955 in a Franconian burial ground in Morken, near Cologne. He had been interred around the year 600 AD in a royal burial chamber there. The precious goods within the grave, especially the materials used for his weapons, suggest that the man enjoyed a special status in the population, Elke Nieveler a specialist for the early Middle Ages at the Rheinisches Landesmuseum said.

Les origines de la beauté

This seems like a very interesting project that has an associated Youtube channel. Old works of physical anthropology often included galleries of physical types of different ethnic and racial groups, and for many people this would have been one of the few opportunities to see people much different than themselves. It is nice to see modern technology being used to preserve a snapshot of the appearance of (admittedly not-average) examples of living ethnic groups. Of course, this is not a problem for the more populous or culturally prominent ethnic groups of the world, but when was the last time you saw what a Kalmyk, Uyghur, Kyrghyz, Altaian, Bashkir, or Lezgin looked like? (There seem to be English, French, and Russian versions of some of these materials).

Bronze Age warrior from Poland

Google translation of original article:

Skull warrior was in such good condition that the museum was tempted by an experiment - a reconstruction of his face. Tasks undertaken by the research team of Dr. Dorothy Lorkiewicz-Muszyńska of the Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Medical Sciences. Every day with their ability to use the police, for example, when you need to identify a murder victim. The first step was to make a 3D scan of the skull.

- At the base using a special computer program was applied to the muscle tissue - explains the director Bartecki. - Method shows more than 90 percent. compliance with the real appearance of a man - says.

Proved invaluable assistance skeleton results Rogalin. Also genetic. Thanks to them, we know that the warrior had a dark complexion, dark hair and eyes.

This combination of traits is rather uncommon in modern Poles. It seems that eastern Europeans looked quite different four thousand years ago than they do today.

Craniometric discontinuity at the Last Glacial Maximum in Europe

The paper includes a craniometric dataset on 10 variables in the supplementary material.

Nature Communications 5, Article number: 4094 doi:10.1038/ncomms5094

Craniometric analysis of European Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic samples supports discontinuity at the Last Glacial Maximum

Ciaraán Brewster et al.

The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) represents the most significant climatic event since the emergence of anatomically modern humans (AMH). In Europe, the LGM may have played a role in changing morphological features as a result of adaptive and stochastic processes. We use craniometric data to examine morphological diversity in pre- and post-LGM specimens. Craniometric variation is assessed across four periods—pre-LGM, late glacial, Early Holocene and Middle Holocene—using a large, well-dated, data set. Our results show significant differences across the four periods, using a MANOVA on size-adjusted cranial measurements. A discriminant function analysis shows separation between pre-LGM and later groups. Analyses repeated on a subsample, controlled for time and location, yield similar results. The results are largely influenced by facial measurements and are most consistent with neutral demographic processes. These findings suggest that the LGM had a major impact on AMH populations in Europe prior to the Neolithic.

Link

Reconstruction of 5,500-year old "Stonehenge Man"

I don't see any mention of DNA in the article The face of prehistoric Britain: Forensic scientist uses Neolithic man's 5,500-year-old skull to create lifelike image as part of new £27m Stonehenge centre, so it's not clear whether the pigmentation attributed to "Stonehenge Man" is the artist's imagination or based on solid evidence.

From the article:

He is the star attraction of Stonehenge's new £27million modern visitor centre that has taken decades to produce. 

A Neolithic man has been brought to life after the most advanced forensic reconstruction of a face, based on a 5,500-year-old skeleton buried in a long barrow 1.5 miles from Stonehenge. 

The new face of the model, which has been carefully reconstructed to show people what life was like

Facial reconstruction of 5,600-year old Maltese woman

Source: Revealed...the face of a Maltese woman 5,600 years ago

Heritage Malta also launched a 3D virtual reconstruction of facial features based on one of the prehistoric skulls (over 5,000 years old) found at the Xaghra Stone Circle in Gozo. It revealed, for the very first time, what one of the earliest Maltese actually looked like.
It was a face which was much closer to what one would expect from a woman of our day and age rather than that of a person who lived on the islands over 5,000 years ago.

Facial shape uncorrelated with aggression

Of interest is the calculation of sexual dimorphism for a variety of indices in different datasets (Figure 1; left). The figure caption:

Box and whisker plots of global sexual dimorphism computed across the different databases. Indices that differed significantly among sexes (after t-test for independent samples) are shown in solid grey. A) Howells database; b) Pucciarelli database, c) 2D Geometric Morphometric database, d) 3D Geometric Morphometric database, e) Patagonian groups database. Square: median; box: 25%–75%; whisker: minimum-maximum values.

Also of interest Figure S1 (bottom right), which breaks down the sexual dimorphism in different populations. The caption reads:

Box and whisker plots of fWHR depicting inter-sexual differences across the populations of each database. a) Howells database; b) Pucciarelli database, c) 2D Geometric Morphometric database, d) 3D Geometric Morphometric database, e) Patagonian groups database. Square: median; box: 25%–75%; whisker: minimum-maximum values. Orange: females, blue: males. Populations showing significantly greater male fWHR (after t-test for independent samples) are marked with grey boxes.

It would be nice if more anthropometric datasets were publicly available. Perhaps some of the above-mentioned are, but I didn't see any mention of how to obtain them in the paper itself.


PLoS ONE 8(1): e52317. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0052317

Lack of Support for the Association between Facial Shape and Aggression: A Reappraisal Based on a Worldwide Population Genetics Perspective

Jorge Gómez-Valdés et al.

Antisocial and criminal behaviors are multifactorial traits whose interpretation relies on multiple disciplines. Since these interpretations may have social, moral and legal implications, a constant review of the evidence is necessary before any scientific claim is considered as truth. A recent study proposed that men with wider faces relative to facial height (fWHR) are more likely to develop unethical behaviour mediated by a psychological sense of power. This research was based on reports suggesting that sexual dimorphism and selection would be responsible for a correlation between fWHR and aggression. Here we show that 4,960 individuals from 94 modern human populations belonging to a vast array of genetic and cultural contexts do not display significant amounts of fWHR sexual dimorphism. Further analyses using populations with associated ethnographical records as well as samples of male prisoners of the Mexico City Federal Penitentiary condemned by crimes of variable level of inter-personal aggression (homicide, robbery, and minor faults) did not show significant evidence, suggesting that populations/individuals with higher levels of bellicosity, aggressive behaviour, or power-mediated behaviour display greater fWHR. Finally, a regression analysis of fWHR on individual's fitness showed no significant correlation between this facial trait and reproductive success. Overall, our results suggest that facial attributes are poor predictors of aggressive behaviour, or at least, that sexual selection was weak enough to leave a signal on patterns of between- and within-sex and population facial variation.

Link

Blue eyes, facial shape, and perceived trustworthiness

A new paper suggests that Czechs tend to view brown-eyed people as more trustworthy than blue-eyed ones, although the difference seems to be due to differences in facial structure between brown- and blue-eyed people; an article in Scientific American covers this new paper fairly well.

I will add that the location of the sample (Czech Republic) is interesting, as it is intermediate between the Baltic area (where light eye pigmentation reaches quasi-fixation, and, hence, presumably, light eyes are not viewed with any suspicion) and southeastern Europe and Anatolia (where there is well-documented folklore about the association of eye pigmentation with the "evil eye").

I had encountered an explanation for this phenomenon in a work by P.G. Maxwell-Stuart on ancient color terminology, in which an argument was made that in predominantly dark-eyed peoples, light eyes -because of their rarity- may have an indirect association with glaucoma and viewed suspiciously for that reason -perceived chance of morbidity; the Wikipedia article suggests the phenomenon is explained on the basis of encounters with light-eyed foreigners who might be unaware of cultural norms against direct staring. But, the frequency of different eye colors in Czechs today is probably fairly balanced, making either explanation unsatisfactory.

Getting back to the article at hand, it appears that -at least in men- blue eyes are associated with a suite of other facial features. Razib offers the suggestion that the possible disadvantage conferred by reduced "trustworthiness" may be compensated in another way through pleiotropy, and the authors suggest:

The trade-off between a preference for colorful and visible physical features and the advantage of a trustworthy-looking face might have contributed to the high variability of European eye and hair color.

But, I'll get back to the possibility that the phenomenon may be driven by a historical process, i.e., the encounter between peoples who differed statistically in eye pigmentation and other facial features.

The picture on the left is from the Gospel Book of Otto III and is about 1,000 years old. Now, all eyes appear conventionally painted as brown dots here, but we can notice that the different provinces are painted with different hair color, with Sclavinia being darker than Germania and lighter than Gallia and Roma. This might make some sense, since Germanic peoples are thought to have originated in northern Germany/southern Scandinavia, and Slavs in C/E Europe (perhaps somewhere between Poland and Ukraine).

This raises the possibility that early Slavs were phenotypically somewhere in the middle of the European pigmentation continuum, although their exact position therein might only be determined with ancient DNA evidence. Today, the lighter-pigmented Slavs are probably those close to the Baltic (e.g., Russians and Poles), the darker ones from the Balkans, perhaps indicating different types of gene flow ("northern" Germanic/Baltic/Finno-Ugrian vs. "southern" Thraco-Illyrian-Greek).

If this is correct, then the slightly negative association of blue eyes in the present Czechs might be a culturally-transmitted vestige of inter-ethnic contact during the medieval period. A possible test would be to repeat the experiment with the Czechs' German neighbors, in which the process ought to operate in reverse -if my hypothesis is correct.

PLoS ONE 8(1): e53285. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0053285

Trustworthy-Looking Face Meets Brown Eyes

Karel Kleisner et al.

We tested whether eye color influences perception of trustworthiness. Facial photographs of 40 female and 40 male students were rated for perceived trustworthiness. Eye color had a significant effect, the brown-eyed faces being perceived as more trustworthy than the blue-eyed ones. Geometric morphometrics, however, revealed significant correlations between eye color and face shape. Thus, face shape likewise had a significant effect on perceived trustworthiness but only for male faces, the effect for female faces not being significant. To determine whether perception of trustworthiness was being influenced primarily by eye color or by face shape, we recolored the eyes on the same male facial photos and repeated the test procedure. Eye color now had no effect on perceived trustworthiness. We concluded that although the brown-eyed faces were perceived as more trustworthy than the blue-eyed ones, it was not brown eye color per se that caused the stronger perception of trustworthiness but rather the facial features associated with brown eyes.

Link

Lack of sexual dimorphism in facial proportions in White European faces

A quick observation on methodology: facial height was measured using the top of the upper lip as a landmark. But, it may be the case that upper lip height is sexually dimorphic (pdf; DOI 10.1007/s10508-006-9136-1).

PLoS ONE 7(8): e42705. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0042705

A Lack of Sexual Dimorphism in Width-to-Height Ratio in White European Faces Using 2D Photographs, 3D Scans, and Anthropometry

Robin S. S. Kramer et al.

Facial width-to-height ratio has received a great deal of attention in recent research. Evidence from human skulls suggests that males have a larger relative facial width than females, and that this sexual dimorphism is an honest signal of masculinity, aggression, and related traits. However, evidence that this measure is sexually dimorphic in faces, rather than skulls, is surprisingly weak. We therefore investigated facial width-to-height ratio in three White European samples using three different methods of measurement: 2D photographs, 3D scans, and anthropometry. By measuring the same individuals with multiple methods, we demonstrated high agreement across all measures. However, we found no evidence of sexual dimorphism in the face. In our third study, we also found a link between facial width-to-height ratio and body mass index for both males and females, although this relationship did not account for the lack of dimorphism in our sample. While we showed sufficient power to detect differences between male and female width-to-height ratio, our results failed to support the general hypothesis of sexual dimorphism in the face.

Link

Broad-faced men more co-operative in inter-group conflict

rom the press release:

The researchers gave University of St Andrews students money to play a game in groups where they could either benefit themselves and free-ride on the cooperation of others or they could risk their money to benefit their group. Half of the students were told that the outcomes of the game would be compared between St Andrews students, the other half that they would be compared with a rival university. The prediction was that the wider faced men would respond to the rivalry in the second condition and sacrifice their money for their own group.

The results of the study confirmed their hypotheses and turned the typical associations with facial width on their head: the more robust looking, wider faced men in the study were more self-sacrificing than other men.

"It was surprising that our predictions were confirmed," reports Dr. Stirrat. "When we mentioned Edinburgh University, our St Andrews participants with wider faces were more cooperative than the other men. When we didn't mention the rivalry, they were less cooperative than other men."

Related links between wide faces and aggression, trustworthiness, company performance and unethical behavior.

Psychological Science doi: 10.1177/0956797611435133

Face Structure Predicts Cooperation Men With Wider Faces Are More Generous to Their In-Group When Out-Group Competition Is Salient

M. Stirrat and D. I. Perrett

Male facial width-to-height ratio appears to correlate with antisocial tendencies, such as aggression, exploitation, cheating, and deception. We present evidence that male facial width-to-height ratio is also associated with a stereotypically male prosocial tendency: to increase cooperation with other in-group members during intergroup competition. We found that men who had wider faces, compared with men who had narrower faces, showed more self-sacrificing cooperation to help their group members when there was competition with another group. We propose that this finding makes sense given the evolutionary functions of social helpfulness and aggression.

Link

Detecting sexual orientation from 50 millisecond face stimuli

If there were no differences between the faces of hetero- and homosexuals, then we'd expect a 50% accuracy in classification of the faces in the two categories. This accuracy was exceeded for both male and female target faces, and irrespective of whether or not the faces were presented upright or inverted (accuracy was smaller with inverted faces).


The authors of the paper also have a piece in the NY Times on the science of Gaydar. The authors write:

Should you trust your gaydar in everyday life? Probably not. In our experiments, average gaydar judgment accuracy was only in the 60 percent range. This demonstrates gaydar ability — which is far from judgment proficiency.

I find it fairly remarkable that this was achieved with 50ms static stimuli. Could a better accuracy be possible with longer stimuli or even moving ones? I'd wager that "real-life" gaydar which uses motion and sound in addition to a quick visual impression may be even more potent. So, I wouldn't be quick to dismiss gaydar's utility in a real-life setting.

An interesting finding of the paper is that women's sexual orientation was assessed more accurately than men's. I personally don't find that very surprising; the authors write:

The prospect of distinct processes for extracting sexual orientation from women’s and men’s faces is intriguing, yet not entirely surprising. The face is assumed to reflect experiences. Men and women differ in their subjective experiences and overt expressions of romantic love and sexual desire, as well as their biological (neurophysiological and hormonal) underpinnings, e.g., [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31]. The current findings suggest that facial expressions of sexual orientation also differ by gender.

It would be quite interesting to create facial composites out of the stimuli used in this study, i.e., to create average male/female homosexual/heterosexual faces, and then have these measured on both objective grounds (= anthropometric differences between them) and subjective ones (= attractiveness, masculinity/femininity, etc.).

My personal guess is that the differences between females based on sexual orientation will be much more pronounced (e.g., greater masculinity, lower attractiveness), which might be consistent with both (i) the greater ability to correctly detect female sexual orientation, as evidenced in this study, and (ii) the smaller numbers of female vs. male homosexuals in the general population, which may suggest that the former are a more "idiosyncratic" population than the latter. But, in any case, one ought to carry out such an experiment.

PLoS ONE 7(5): e36671. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0036671

The Roles of Featural and Configural Face Processing in Snap Judgments of Sexual Orientation

Joshua A. Tabak, Vivian Zayas

Abstract

Research has shown that people are able to judge sexual orientation from faces with above-chance accuracy, but little is known about how these judgments are formed. Here, we investigated the importance of well-established face processing mechanisms in such judgments: featural processing (e.g., an eye) and configural processing (e.g., spatial distance between eyes). Participants judged sexual orientation from faces presented for 50 milliseconds either upright, which recruits both configural and featural processing, or upside-down, when configural processing is strongly impaired and featural processing remains relatively intact. Although participants judged women’s and men’s sexual orientation with above-chance accuracy for upright faces and for upside-down faces, accuracy for upside-down faces was significantly reduced. The reduced judgment accuracy for upside-down faces indicates that configural face processing significantly contributes to accurate snap judgments of sexual orientation.

Link

Looking at faces of other races (Fu et al. 2012)

PLoS ONE 7(6): e37688. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0037688

Adults Scan Own- and Other-Race Faces Differently

Genyue Fu et al.

It is well established that individuals show an other-race effect (ORE) in face recognition: they recognize own-race faces better than other-race faces. The present study tested the hypothesis that individuals would also scan own- and other-race faces differently. We asked Chinese participants to remember Chinese and Caucasian faces and we tested their memory of the faces over five testing blocks. The participants' eye movements were recorded with the use of an eye tracker. The data were analyzed with an Area of Interest approach using the key AOIs of a face (eyes, nose, and mouth). Also, we used the iMap toolbox to analyze the raw data of participants' fixation on each pixel of the entire face. Results from both types of analyses strongly supported the hypothesis. When viewing target Chinese or Caucasian faces, Chinese participants spent a significantly greater proportion of fixation time on the eyes of other-race Caucasian faces than the eyes of own-race Chinese faces. In contrast, they spent a significantly greater proportion of fixation time on the nose and mouth of Chinese faces than the nose and mouth of Caucasian faces. This pattern of differential fixation, for own- and other-race eyes and nose in particular, was consistent even as participants became increasingly familiar with the target faces of both races. The results could not be explained by the perceptual salience of the Chinese nose or Caucasian eyes because these features were not differentially salient across the races. Our results are discussed in terms of the facial morphological differences between Chinese and Caucasian faces and the enculturation of mutual gaze norms in East Asian cultures.

Link

Cranial variation and the transition to agriculture in Europe

Students of physical anthropology won't be surprised that Pinhasi and von Cramon-Taubadel find that the Neolithic and pre-Neolithic populations in Europe were differentiated cranially as they were apparently genetically.

It has long been recognized that the ancient European population was different than the Upper Paleolithic population of the continent. Carleton Coon ascribed this differentiation to migration of narrow-faced Mediterraneans into the territory of the robust broad-faced Upper Paleolithics. Ilse Schwidetzky also viewed migration from the Southeast of gracile Mediterraneans who gradually replaced broad-faced Cro-Magnoids.

So, it is nice to read that the re-analysis of a wide assortment of skulls on 15 cranial variables has revealed that:

The major shape differences separating hunter-gatherer Mesolithic populations and farming Neolithic populations are coded by PC1 with Neolithic specimens having longer and taller vaults, and Mesolithic specimens having larger, and broader faces.

There are two (or three) puzzles in European prehistory:

• How the robust, low-skulled, broad-faced hunter-gatherers became more high-skulled, narrow-faced and gracile
• How the latter became brachycephalized until early modern times
• Why they have become partially debrachycephalized in the most recent of times

Anthropologists have tended to favor either migration or adaptation to explain these trends, with some even suggesting simple phenotypic plasticity without any major genetic change. It is now clear that -whatever the role of adaptation or plasticity- the Upper Paleolithic population of Europe did not simply change to become more gracile on its own, but was affected by an already gracile population of foreign origin who set the ball rolling. There is already work on the genetic basis of facial structure, so, it is quite possible that eventually we'll be able to track directly the genetic changes underlying the phenotypic transformation of Europeans.

From the paper:

Nonetheless, the craniometric analysis allows us to discern certain patterns. For example, the ‘Forest Neolithic’ specimens are clearly much more similar to other Mesolithic hunter-gatherers than to Neolithic farmers in terms of their craniometric shape, suggesting a large degree of cultural diffusion in this region. However, it is also evident that the earliest potential colonisers of southeast and central Europe are very similar to the Anatolian Çatal Höyük population, congruent with an initial demic diffusion from the Near East/Anatolia.

The "Forest Neolithic" included pottery-using groups of eastern Europe (hence Neolithic, since pottery is one of the hallmarks of that period), but should not be confused with the early agriculturalists who apparently practiced farming without pottery early on in the Near East and Greece, and then acquired pottery and expanded with it into the rest of Europe, together with their full "package" of domesticated crops and animals.

Human Biology vol. 84

Cranial variation and the transition to agriculture in Europe

Ron Pinhasi, Noreen Von Cramon-Taubadel

Abstract

Debates surrounding the nature of the Neolithic demographic transition in Europe have historically centred on two opposing models; a 'demic' diffusion model whereby incoming farmers from the Near East and Anatolia effectively replaced or completely assimilated indigenous Mesolithic foraging communities and an 'indigenist' model resting on the assumption that ideas relating to agriculture and animal domestication diffused from the Near East, but with little or no gene flow. The extreme versions of these dichotomous models have been heavily contested primarily on the basis of archaeological and modern genetic data. However, in recent years there has been a growing acceptance of the likelihood that both processes were ongoing throughout the Neolithic transition and that a more complex, regional approach is required to fully understand the change from a foraging to a primarily agricultural mode of subsistence in Europe. Craniometric data have been particularly useful for testing these more complex scenarios, as they can reliably be employed as a proxy for the genetic relationships amongst Mesolithic and Neolithic populations. In contrast, modern genetic data assume that modern European populations accurately reflect the genetic structure of Europe at the time of the Neolithic transition, while ancient DNA data are still not geographically or temporally detailed enough to test continent-wide processes. Here, with particular emphasis on the role of craniometric analyses, we review the current state of knowledge regarding the cultural and biological nature of the Neolithic transition in Europe.

Link

Facial attractiveness and interracial marriage

The data:

From the paper:

The results of the experiment demonstrated that there are robust differences in the relative perceived attractiveness of different racial groups. Further, these differences are affected by the gender of the person being rated. Among males, Black faces were rated as the most attractive followed by White faces and then Asian faces. For the females, Asian faces were seen as the most attractive followed by White and then Black faces. The same pattern was found regardless of the ethnicity of the person doing the ratings.

Whatever the perceptions of attractiveness, it seems that people still tend to marry within their own races. For example, in the UK 0.24% of white females marry black males, and the corresponding percentage for the US is 0.56%. Since blacks make up roughly 1/10 of the population in the US, then if race was not an issue, we'd expect white females to marry black males about 10% of the time; the empirical figure is about ~20 times lower.

So, what this study shows is that while intra-racial marriage is still the norm, black males have an easier time overcoming the racial barrier compared to black females, and Asian females compared to Asian males.

The paper does not seem to present any facial attractiveness data, although it does present an analysis to discount an alternative hypothesis based on stature differences. According to that hypothesis, Asian females outmarry more easily than Asian males because Asians are shorter, and women tend to marry taller men than themselves.

PLoS ONE 7(2): e31703. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0031703


A Facial Attractiveness Account of Gender Asymmetries in Interracial Marriage

Michael B. Lewis


Abstract 
Background
In the US and UK, more Black men are married to White women than vice versa and there are more White men married to Asian women than vice versa. Models of interracial marriage, based on the exchange of racial status for other capital, cannot explain these asymmetries. A new explanation is offered based on the relative perceived facial attractiveness of the different race-by-gender groups.

Method and Findings
This explanation was tested using a survey of perceived facial attractiveness. This found that Black males are perceived as more attractive than White or East Asian males whereas among females, it is the East Asians that are perceived as most attractive on average.

Conclusions
Incorporating these attractiveness patterns into the model of marriage decisions produces asymmetries in interracial marriage similar to those in the observed data in terms of direction and relative size. This model does not require differences in status between races nor different strategies based on gender. Predictions are also generated regarding the relative attractiveness of those engaging in interracial marriage.

Link

Facial differences in autistic boys

If any readers have had the opportunity to interact with large numbers of autistic children, it would be interesting to see if these findings agree/disagree with their subjective impressions.

Autistic Facial Characteristics Identified

Aldridge and colleagues found the following distinct differences between facial characteristics of children with autism and those of typically developing children:

• Children with autism have a broader upper face, including wider eyes.
• Children with autism have a shorter middle region of the face, including the cheeks and nose.
• Children with autism have a broader or wider mouth and philtrum -- the divot below the nose, above the top lip.

Molecular Autism 2011, 2:15 doi:10.1186/2040-2392-2-15

Facial phenotypes in subgroups of pre-pubertal boys with autism spectrum disorders are correlated with clinical phenotypes

Kristina Aldridge et al.

Abstract (provisional)
Background
The brain develops in concert and in coordination with the developing facial tissues, with each influencing the development of the other and sharing genetic signaling pathways. Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) result from alterations in the embryological brain, suggesting that the development of the faces of children with ASD may result in subtle facial differences compared to typically developing children. In this study, we tested two hypotheses. First, we asked whether children with ASD display a subtle but distinct facial phenotype compared to typically developing children. Second, we sought to determine whether there are subgroups of facial phenotypes within the population of children with ASD that denote biologically discrete subgroups.

Methods
The 3dMD cranial System was used to acquire three dimensional stereophotogrammetric images for our study sample of 8- to 12-year-old boys diagnosed with essential ASD (n = 65) and typically developing boys (n = 41) following approved Institutional Review Board protocols. Three dimensional coordinates were recorded for 17 facial anthropometric landmarks using the 3dMD Patient software . Statistical comparisons of facial phenotypes were completed using Euclidean Distance Matrix Analysis and Principal Coordinates Analysis. Data representing clinical and behavioral traits were statistically compared among groups by using chi2 tests, Fisher's exact tests, Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests and Student's t-tests where appropriate.

Results
First, we found that there are significant differences in facial morphology in boys with ASD compared to typically developing boys. Second, we also found two subgroups of boys with ASD with facial morphology that differed from the majority of the boys with ASD and the typically developing boys. Furthermore, membership in each of these distinct subgroups was correlated with particular clinical and behavioral traits.

Conclusions
Boys with ASD display a facial phenotype distinct from that of typically developing boys, which may reflect alterations in the prenatal development of the brain. Subgroups of boys with ASD defined by distinct facial morphologies correlated with clinical and behavioral traits, suggesting potentially different etiologies and genetic differences compared to the larger group of boys with ASD. Further investigations into genes involved in neurodevelopment and craniofacial development of these subgroups will help to elucidate the causes and significance of these subtle facial differences.

Link

Reconstruction of 7,500 years old forager from Norway

Source (in Norwegian)

FOTO: ARKEOLOGISK MUSEUM/UNIVERSITETET I STAVANGER

Broad-faced behavioral correlates / the rise of the new physiognomics?

The width-to-height ratio of the face had been previously found to be positively linked to aggressiveness and untrustworthiness.

A couple of new papers discover new correlations between broad faces and behavior.

From LiveScience:

Shape of CEO's Face Linked to Company Performance
The shape of a CEO's face can predict his company's financial performance, according to a new study in which researchers analyzed photos of 55 male chief executive officers of Fortune 500 businesses.

The crucial feature: Facial width. Corporate leaders with faces that were wide relative to their length — such as Herb Kelleher, the former CEO of Southwest Airlines — tended to lead better-performing companies than CEOs with narrower faces, such as Dick Fuld, the long-faced final CEO of Lehman Brothers, the study found.

And:

Wide Faces Predict Unethical Behavior
A man's face might hint whether he is bad to the bone, with scientists finding that wider faces might predict unethical behavior in men.

Wide faces in men have been linked with aggression and perceptions of untrustworthiness. Now researchers have discovered that broad-faced men appear more likely to deceive their counterparts in negotiations and are more willing to cheat in order to increase their financial gain.

I will add the CEO study abstract when I see it on the journal website (post a link in the comments if you've found it).

These results certainly go against the "don't judge a book by its cover" adage, and may mean that the old physiognomists from Pseudo-Aristotle to Lavater may have been onto something. I don't know what, if anything, they had to say about broad faces in particular, but it is certainly the case that the easy dismissal of their work in more recent times may have been premature.

Of course much of what was in the old physiognomy may have been the result of personal preferences/prejudices/experiences. Thankfully, nowadays we can evaluate stereotypes statistically to see whether they contain a grain of truth, and even discover novel associations.

I've always thought that there is an element of truth to physiognomy, judging from the visual and theatrical arts: heroes, villains, comical characters, princesses and evil witches are so often presented with distinctive visual cues that their presentation must touch on some objective anthropometric-behavioral reality.

Proceedings of the Royal Society B doi: 10.1098/rspb.2011.1193

Bad to the bone: facial structure predicts unethical behaviour
Michael P. Haselhuhn and Elaine M. Wong

Abstract

Researchers spanning many scientific domains, including primatology, evolutionary biology and psychology, have sought to establish an evolutionary basis for morality. While researchers have identified social and cognitive adaptations that support ethical behaviour, a consensus has emerged that genetically determined physical traits are not reliable signals of unethical intentions or actions. Challenging this view, we show that genetically determined physical traits can serve as reliable predictors of unethical behaviour if they are also associated with positive signals in intersex and intrasex selection. Specifically, we identify a key physical attribute, the facial width-to-height ratio, which predicts unethical behaviour in men. Across two studies, we demonstrate that men with wider faces (relative to facial height) are more likely to explicitly deceive their counterparts in a negotiation, and are more willing to cheat in order to increase their financial gain. Importantly, we provide evidence that the link between facial metrics and unethical behaviour is mediated by a psychological sense of power. Our results demonstrate that static physical attributes can indeed serve as reliable cues of immoral action, and provide additional support for the view that evolutionary forces shape ethical judgement and behaviour.

Link

Accurate fake smile detecting collectivist Chinese

Random bit of knowledge from the paper:

In Eastern cultures, especially China, “one must NOT show ones' teeth when smiling” is a strict rule of discipline for women that has lasted thousands of years, ever since the Tang Dynasty (so the Mona Lisa's smile could also have been appreciated by ancient Chinese). Ancient Chinese women even used adornments around the mouth (e.g., fake dimples) to compensate for the lack of emotional information conveyed by the mouth during their closed-mouth smiles. A good example of such an historic and prevalent influence of cultural value on the role of the mouth in smiles can be illustrated by contrasting the smile emoticons used on the Internet by Easterners and Westerners. In common Western smile emoticons such as :-) or :), the mouth is exaggerated with a crimped line whereas the eyes are simplified as two dots. As a contrast, Japanese use smile emoticons with a simplified mouth but crimped eyes, e.g., (ʌ.ʌ) or (ʌ_ʌ) [16], [17], [18]. Chinese, especially females, go even further by not only adopting simplified mouth and crimped eyes, but also inusing them with the ancient tradition of attaching fake dimples, e.g., (*ʌ_ʌ*), ( = ʌ_ʌ = ), or (@ʌ_ʌ@) [19].

I think the distinction between Western and Eastern here may not accurately capture the temporal dynamics of this process. If one looks back at Western art -the "Mona Lisa example is apt- I think one would be hard to find examples of the big bright smile that seems to be favored in much of Western culture today.

Indeed, when I was collecting pictures for my "women from the 40s vs. women from the 2000s facial composites", I noticed how difficult it was to find pictures of the modern women that did not adopt the typical wide smile. I don't remember ever seeing an ancient Greek depiction of a modern-type smile, and the Greek meidiama was a decidedly closed-mouth affair, with the occasional depiction of satyrs slightly deviating towards a more open-mouth smile, but of a malevolent rather than pleasant bent.

Going back to the East Asian smile, this picture of an anime character seems to match the emoticon quite well, also making it obvious why "the eyes have it" when it comes to accurate detection of smiling:

PLoS ONE 6(5): e19903. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0019903

Eyes Are Windows to the Chinese Soul: Evidence from the Detection of Real and Fake Smiles

Xiaoqin Mai et al.

How do people interpret the meaning of a smile? Previous studies with Westerners have found that both the eyes and the mouth are crucial in identifying and interpreting smiles, yet less is known about Easterners. Here we reported that when asking the Chinese to judge the Duchenne and non-Duchenne smiles as either real or fake, their accuracy and sensitivity were negatively correlated with their individualism scores but positively correlated with their collectivism scores. However, such correlations were found only for participants who stated the eyes to be the most useful references, but not for those who favored the mouth. Moreover, participants who favored the eyes were more accurate and sensitive than those who favored the mouth. Our results thus indicate that Chinese who follow the typical Eastern decoding process of using the eyes as diagnostic cues to identify and interpret others' facial expressions and social intentions, are particularly accurate and sensitive, the more they self-report greater collectivistic and lower individualistic values.

Link

Discriminating babies

PLoS ONE 6(4): e18621. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0018621

Caucasian Infants Scan Own- and Other-Race Faces Differently

Andrea Wheeler et al.

Young infants are known to prefer own-race faces to other race faces and recognize own-race faces better than other-race faces. However, it is entirely unclear as to whether infants also attend to different parts of own- and other-race faces differently, which may provide an important clue as to how and why the own-race face recognition advantage emerges so early. The present study used eye tracking methodology to investigate whether 6- to 10-month-old Caucasian infants (N = 37) have differential scanning patterns for dynamically displayed own- and other-race faces. We found that even though infants spent a similar amount of time looking at own- and other-race faces, with increased age, infants increasingly looked longer at the eyes of own-race faces and less at the mouths of own-race faces. These findings suggest experience-based tuning of the infant's face processing system to optimally process own-race faces that are different in physiognomy from other-race faces. In addition, the present results, taken together with recent own- and other-race eye tracking findings with infants and adults, provide strong support for an enculturation hypothesis that East Asians and Westerners may be socialized to scan faces differently due to each culture's conventions regarding mutual gaze during interpersonal communication.

Link

The many faces of Moora

Here is a 2,600-year old bog woman from Lower Saxony, Germany as reconstructed by forensic scientists (Illustration courtesy Ursula Wittwer-Backofen, University of Freiburg).

And, here is a German language article on the same female which shows many different reconstructions.

By Caroline Wilkinson:

or, by Sabine Ohrlogge: