You can take the eyes out of the doll, but....
The perceived animacy of a face is well-predicted by the perceived animacy of the eyes presented in isolation. This is not true for other facial features (eg having a highly life-like nose does not appear to be crucial), suggesting that the eyes are a critical feature for perceiving life in a face. Here, we asked whether it was therefore possible to 'transplant' animacy into a face by transplanting the eyes into a face image. We conducted digital eye surgery on a series of morphed human/doll faces and found that while doll eyes make a morphed face look less alive, human eyes do not make you look more so. Thus, we cannot so easily transplant animacy into a face, but we can take it away.
Department of Psychology, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105, USA. benjamin.balas@ndsu.edu
Benjamin
B
Balas
Joseph
J
Horski
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003463:Cues; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005123:Eye; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D019369:Life; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010865:Pilot Projects; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology