A Study of Artificial Personality from the Perspective of the Observer

The social constructivists provide a dramaturgical model of personality that is particularly valuable in understanding artificial personality for embodied agents. According to the social constructivists, personality is the product of three distinct perspectives: that of the actor, which entails the expression of personality, that of the observer, which involves the interpretation or impression of personality, and that of the self-observer, which concerns the management of self-presentations of personality [1]. To date most research has focused on the perspective of the actor, or the expression of personality. This paper explicitly models the perspective of the observer by modeling the physical personality of the face. Physical personality refers to those aspects of personal appearance that produce an initial impression of personality in an observer. In this study, principle component analysis was used to match the human classification of faces along the bipolar rating extremes of the following trait dimensions: dominance, warmth, sociality, and trustworthiness.