Research on the perception of faces has focused on the size, shape, and configuration of inherited features or the biological\nphenotype, and largely ignored the effects of adornment, or the extended phenotype. Research on the evolution of signaling\nhas shown that animals frequently alter visual features, including color cues, to attract, intimidate or protect themselves\nfrom conspecifics. Humans engage in conscious manipulation of visual signals using cultural tools in real time rather than\ngenetic changes over evolutionary time. Here, we investigate one tool, the use of color cosmetics. In two studies, we asked\nviewers to rate the same female faces with or without color cosmetics, and we varied the style of makeup from minimal\n(natural), to moderate (professional), to dramatic (glamorous). Each look provided increasing luminance contrast between\nthe facial features and surrounding skin. Faces were shown for 250 ms or for unlimited inspection time, and subjects rated\nthem for attractiveness, competence, likeability and trustworthiness. At 250 ms, cosmetics had significant positive effects on\nall outcomes. Length of inspection time did not change the effect for competence or attractiveness. However, with longer\ninspection time, the effect of cosmetics on likability and trust varied by specific makeup looks, indicating that cosmetics\ncould impact automatic and deliberative judgments differently. The results suggest that cosmetics can create supernormal\nfacial stimuli, and that one way they may do so is by exaggerating cues to sexual dimorphism. Our results provide evidence\nthat judgments of facial trustworthiness and attractiveness are at least partially separable, that beauty has a significant\npositive effect on judgment of competence, a universal dimension of social cognition, but has a more nuanced effect on the\nother universal dimension of social warmth, and that the extended phenotype significantly influences perception of\nbiologically important signals at first glance and at longer inspection.
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