Judged and Remembered Trustworthiness of Faces Is Enhanced by Experiencing Multisensory Synchrony and Asynchrony in the Right Order

This work builds on the enfacement effect. This effect occurs when experiencing a rhythmic stimulation on one’s cheek while seeing someone else’s face being touched in a synchronous way. This typically leads to cognitive and social-cognitive effects similar to self-other merging. In two studies, we demonstrate that this multisensory stimulation can change the evaluation of the other’s face. 

In the first study, participants judged the stranger’s face and similar faces as being more trustworthy after synchrony, but not after asynchrony. Synchrony interacted with the order of the stroking; hence trustworthiness only changed when the synchronous stimulation occurred before the asynchronous one. 

In the second study, a synchronous stimulation caused participants to remember the stranger’s face as more trustworthy, but again only when the synchronous stimulation came before the asynchronous one. 

The results of both studies show that order of stroking creates a context in which multisensory synchrony can affect the trustworthiness of faces.

Below:  Examples of the faces judged in Study 1 (consent from the person depicted in Fig 1 A was obtained for publication of these images) A) Computerized version of the stranger’s face; B) 35% morph of the stranger’s face; C) 20% morph of the stranger’s face; D) filler face.

Below:  Example of the Faces and Morphs used in Study 2 (consent from the person depicted was obtained for publication of these images)

Full article at:  http://goo.gl/zBPVU7

By:   

Hugo Toscano, Thomas W. Schubert

Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Centro de Investigação e Intervenção Social, Lisboa, Portugal

Thomas W. Schubert

Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway 

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