Creating Physical Personalities For Agents with Faces: Modeling Trait Impressions of the Face

There are both physical and psychological aspects to personality. Psychological personality originates from within and is expressed through a variety of physical behaviors. Another aspect of personality, which has less to do with expressiveness than with perception, concerns what might be called the physical personality. Physical personality comprises those aspects of appearance, which, at zero acquaintance, give rise to an initial impression of personality and a concomitant set of reactions and expectations in others. With the goal of understanding how embodied agents, specifically those with faces, can best utilize the perception of physical personality, the psychological literature on the person perception of the face is reviewed. It will be seen that modeling the person perception of the face would provide agents with a rudimentary sense of social self-awareness that would enable them to alter their faces so as to better advertise their intentions, legitimize their roles, and elicit or prohibit specific responses. A brief discussion of the ways in which the trait impressions of the face can be modeled is also presented.