How to hyperstimulate a sex-recognition algorithm. Women have higher luminous contrast between their facial skin and their lip/eye color. This contrast effect is influenced not only by degree of lightness but also by degree of redness (source). Women are fairer in complexion because their skin has less melanin and less blood (Edwards and Duntley, 1939).... Read More

The inferotemporal cortex is involved in both face perception and color perception. It may be in this region that the brain processes visual data on the hue and luminosity of human skin. If you are a member of the International Society for Human Ethology, you can read my latest article: Hue and luminosity of human... Read More

Averaged face of blue-eyed male subjects (left). Averaged face of brown-eyed male subjects (right). Czech population. (Kleisner et al., 2010) If sexual selection of women diversified the eye color of early Europeans, the new colors should tend to be sex-linked, since the selection targeted women more than men. There is now evidence that blue eyes... Read More

Averaged female face (left) and averaged male face (right). The key facial regions for gender recognition, in terms of either response time or accuracy, seem to be where facial skin borders the lips or the eyes. The human face is a special visual object. We do not learn to recognize it. Instead, it is processed... Read More

Postgraduate students, School of Psychology, Cardiff University A recent study from Cardiff University (Wales) has found interesting sex differences in the way men and women evaluate facial skin color, specifically for faces of white, black, or mixed-race origin. The female participants evaluated White faces the least favorably out of all male facial photos. Conversely, the... Read More

Averaged faces of 22 women and 22 men (White American subjects with no makeup). Female faces are lighter-skinned than male faces, while showing more contrast between facial skin and lips/eyes (see research by Richard Russell). Les Presses de l’Université Laval has just published my book Femmes claires, hommes foncés. Les racines oubliées du colorisme. An... Read More

We seem to be born with the ability to recognize the human face. Even infants as young as 1 month old show a consistent, spontaneous preference for face-like stimuli over nonface-like patterns. Such recognition seems guided by an inborn representation of the main facial features, particularly the eyes and the mouth (Pascalis & Kelly, 2008).... Read More