How Personality Traits Affect the Perception of Facial and Vocal Attractiveness

TL;DR

This study shows how personality traits influence how we perceive facial and vocal attractiveness, using brain activity measurements.

Contribution

The study reveals modality-specific and late-stage neural mechanisms linking personality traits to attractiveness perception.

Findings

Semantically congruent personality traits facilitate attractiveness perception, while incongruent traits hinder it.

Facial attractiveness is influenced by motivated attention as shown by the late positive component in EEG.

Vocal attractiveness is first affected during semantic integration (N400) and later by motivated attention.

Abstract

Background: Previous research has found an association between attractiveness and personality traits, but the neural mechanisms are largely unknown. Method: We used a Stroop-like paradigm combined with EEG recordings to investigate how personality traits affect the perception of facial and vocal attractiveness. Twenty-three female participants classified the attractiveness of male faces and male voices paired with positive or negative personality trait words. Results: The behavioral results indicate that personality trait words that are semantically congruent with attractiveness levels facilitate the perception of attractiveness, whereas incongruent trait information produces the opposite effect. Event-related potentials revealed that the influence of personality trait words on facial attractiveness was primarily related to motivated attention as indicated by the late positive component. In the voice task, personality trait words impacted vocal attractiveness processing first during semantic integration (N400 component) and then modulated motivated attention. Conclusions: These results suggest that alleged personality traits modify attractiveness processing in faces and voices in relatively late and partially modality-specific stages.

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