Evaluating young and old faces on social dimensions: Trusthworthiness and dominance

Abstract

In the present study we provide measures of dominance and trustworthiness of a subset of faces from the Productive Aging Laboratory (PAL) Face Database (Minear & Park, 2004). Recent research has shown that dominance and trustworthiness are central to social perception, and that they can be inferred from faces in milliseconds (Oosterhof & Todorov, 2008). A total of 286 faces from four age groups (18-29; 30-49; 50-69; 70-94) were presented and evaluated in dominance and trustworthiness. The same faces were also evaluated on other four dimensions: likeability, perceived age, attractiveness, and gender typicality. This information enriches the PAL Face Database, making it more valuable for researchers investigating faceprocessing mechanisms across the lifespan. The collected norms are available for download as supplemental materials.