Multimodal interaction effects of faces and/or voices on impression formation

抄録

The present study examined how facial and vocal properties have an effect on forming an impression of others. In the study phase, the personality characteristics extracted from the stimulus faces and voices were investigated. Three characteristics of personality (social desirability, activity, and intelligence) were extracted. One of these three factors (social desirability) which explained most of the variance was used for the experimental phase. In the experimental phase comparisons were made between the impressions formed from a single channel (face or voice) and the impressions formed from multi-channel inputs (face and voice simultaneously). Furthermore, the present study investigated whether or not the auditory channel is more influential than visual stimuli in situations in which: (1) the face and voice personality attributes (social desirability) are congruent: (2) the face and voice personality attributes (social desirability) are incongruent; and (3) either the face or the voice is presented singly. The results indicated that the voice channel predominated in the formation of impressions when the face/voice personality characteristics were incongruent. Consequently, it was observed that auditory information was superior to visual information during the formation of impressions.