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Is a downwards head tilt a cross-cultural signal of dominance? Evidence for a universal visual illusion

The present pre-registered research provides the first evidence that a downwards head tilt is sufficient to communicate dominance from a neutral facial expression among the Mayangna, members of an unindustrialized, small-scale traditional society in Nicaragua who have had minimal exposure to North A...

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Autores principales: Witkower, Zachary, Hill, Alexander K., Koster, Jeremy, Tracy, Jessica L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8748875/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35013481
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-04370-w
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author Witkower, Zachary
Hill, Alexander K.
Koster, Jeremy
Tracy, Jessica L.
author_facet Witkower, Zachary
Hill, Alexander K.
Koster, Jeremy
Tracy, Jessica L.
author_sort Witkower, Zachary
collection PubMed
description The present pre-registered research provides the first evidence that a downwards head tilt is sufficient to communicate dominance from a neutral facial expression among the Mayangna, members of an unindustrialized, small-scale traditional society in Nicaragua who have had minimal exposure to North American culture. Consistent with the Action Unit imposter effect observed in North American populations (Witkower and Tracy in Psychol Sci 30:893–906, 2019), changes to the appearance of the upper face caused by a downwards head tilt were sufficient to elicit perceptions of dominance among this population. Given that the Mayangna are unlikely to associate a downwards head tilt or related apparent facial changes with dominance as a result of cross-cultural learning, the present results suggest that perceptions of dominance formed from a downwards head tilt, and the visual illusion shaping these perceptions, are a widely generalizable, and possibly universal, feature of human psychology.
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spelling pubmed-87488752022-01-11 Is a downwards head tilt a cross-cultural signal of dominance? Evidence for a universal visual illusion Witkower, Zachary Hill, Alexander K. Koster, Jeremy Tracy, Jessica L. Sci Rep Article The present pre-registered research provides the first evidence that a downwards head tilt is sufficient to communicate dominance from a neutral facial expression among the Mayangna, members of an unindustrialized, small-scale traditional society in Nicaragua who have had minimal exposure to North American culture. Consistent with the Action Unit imposter effect observed in North American populations (Witkower and Tracy in Psychol Sci 30:893–906, 2019), changes to the appearance of the upper face caused by a downwards head tilt were sufficient to elicit perceptions of dominance among this population. Given that the Mayangna are unlikely to associate a downwards head tilt or related apparent facial changes with dominance as a result of cross-cultural learning, the present results suggest that perceptions of dominance formed from a downwards head tilt, and the visual illusion shaping these perceptions, are a widely generalizable, and possibly universal, feature of human psychology. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-01-10 /pmc/articles/PMC8748875/ /pubmed/35013481 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-04370-w Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Witkower, Zachary
Hill, Alexander K.
Koster, Jeremy
Tracy, Jessica L.
Is a downwards head tilt a cross-cultural signal of dominance? Evidence for a universal visual illusion
title Is a downwards head tilt a cross-cultural signal of dominance? Evidence for a universal visual illusion
title_full Is a downwards head tilt a cross-cultural signal of dominance? Evidence for a universal visual illusion
title_fullStr Is a downwards head tilt a cross-cultural signal of dominance? Evidence for a universal visual illusion
title_full_unstemmed Is a downwards head tilt a cross-cultural signal of dominance? Evidence for a universal visual illusion
title_short Is a downwards head tilt a cross-cultural signal of dominance? Evidence for a universal visual illusion
title_sort is a downwards head tilt a cross-cultural signal of dominance? evidence for a universal visual illusion
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8748875/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35013481
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-04370-w
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