The 4D Space-Time Dimensions of Facial Perception

Facial information is a powerful channel for human-to-human communication. Characteristically, faces can be defined as biological objects that are four-dimensional (4D) patterns, whereby they have concurrently a spatial structure and surface as well as temporal dynamics. The spatial characteristics of facial objects contain a volume and surface in three dimensions (3D), namely breadth, height and importantly, depth. The temporal properties of facial objects are defined by how a 3D facial structure and surface evolves dynamically over time; where time is referred to as the fourth dimension (4D). Our entire perception of another’s face, whether it be social, affective or cognitive perceptions, is therefore built on a combination of 3D and 4D visual cues. Counterintuitively, over the past few decades of experimental research in psychology, facial stimuli have largely been captured, reproduced and presented to participants with two dimensions (2D), while remaining largely static. The following review aims to advance and update facial researchers, on the recent revolution in computer-generated, realistic 4D facial models produced from real-life human subjects. We delve in-depth to summarize recent studies which have utilized facial stimuli that possess 3D structural and surface cues (geometry, surface and depth) and 4D temporal cues (3D structure + dynamic viewpoint and movement). In sum, we have found that higher-order perceptions such as identity, gender, ethnicity, emotion and personality, are critically influenced by 4D characteristics. In future, it is recommended that facial stimuli incorporate the 4D space-time perspective with the proposed time-resolved methods.