Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 285, Issue 1870, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.2430
Keywords
social perception; facial cues; health; disease avoidance
Categories
Funding
- Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences [P12-1017]
- Swedish Research Council [421-2012-1125]
- Karolinska Institutet
- Stockholm Stress Center
- Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Detection and avoidance of sick individuals have been proposed as essential components in a behavioural defence against disease, limiting the risk of contamination. However, almost no knowledge exists on whether humans can detect sick individuals, and if so by what cues. Here, we demonstrate that untrained people can identify sick individuals above chance level by looking at facial photos taken 2 h after injection with a bacterial stimulus inducing an immune response (2.0 ng kg(-1) lipopolysaccharide) or placebo, the global sensitivity index being d' = 0.405. Signal detection analysis (receiver operating characteristic curve area) showed an area of 0.62 (95% confidence intervals 0.60-0.63). Acutely sick people were rated by naive observers as having paler lips and skin, a more swollen face, droopier corners of the mouth, more hanging eyelids, redder eyes, and less glossy and patchy skin, as well as appearing more tired. Our findings suggest that facial cues associated with the skin, mouth and eyes can aid in the detection of acutely sick and potentially contagious people.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available