Abstract
Orghian & Hidalgo (2020) revealed that faces partially occluded by noise increased attractiveness compared to faces without noises and interpreted this was because the lack of information was complemented by the average face with higher attractiveness. This study examined more in detail the possibility of average face completion. We conducted a Best Likeness task in which participants observed a face, then selected one they observed from a set of faces manipulated typicality (distance from the average face) of the face and, typicality of faces evaluation task. The presence or absence of noise in the faces being observed was manipulated. The results of the Best Likeness task showed that more highly typical faces were selected when observing faces with noise than without noises. However, there was no difference in the typicality ratings between with and without noise. The results suggest that average face completion occurs when observing faces with insufficient information.
