Running head: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

People often draw trait inferences from facial appearance of other people. We investigated the minimal conditions under which people make such inferences. In five studies, each focusing on a specific trait judgment, we manipulated the time exposure to unfamiliar faces. Judgments made after 100 ms exposure highly correlated with judgments made in the absence of time constraints, suggesting that this exposure was sufficient for participants to form an impression. In fact, for all judgments -attractiveness, likeability, trustworthiness, competence, and aggressiveness -increased time exposure did not significantly improve the correlations. With increased exposure from 100 to 500 ms, participants’ judgments became more negative, response times for judgments decreased, and confidence in judgments increased. With increased exposure from 500 to 1000 ms, only confidence increased for some of the judgments, suggesting that additional time may simply boost confidence in judgments. However, increased time exposure led to more differentiated person impressions.