Sussing Out Simians: Humans Can Accurately Size Up a Chimp's Personality after Viewing Its Face
What's in a face? A chimpanzee's face, that is. Humans, it seems, apparently remain genetically and culturally close enough to their primate relatives, and are able to accurately guess an individual chimp's personalit y just by observing it s face. This discovery sheds light on the evolution of our faces, and could yield insights into the nature of autism.There's an old saying that you can't judge a book by its cover, meaning that one shouldn't judge someone or something based solely on appearances. Recent findings suggest, however, that one actually might be able to correctly guess many aspects of another person's personality just by looking at his or her face if it displays a neutral expression, including traits such as trustworthiness and aggression. [More]