Facial color properties affect perceived age.

Age is a crucial social characteristic that influences various aspects of life, including legal rights, obligations, and social standing. Researchers have long been interested in how facial color affects the perception of age, but the specific role of color, aside from luminance, has not been thoroughly investigated. To shed light on this topic, they carried out two studies.

The first experiment aimed to determine if alterations in facial color due to natural aging can independently influence perceived age. The second study focused on the impact of varying red-green contrast levels across individuals aged 18 to 91 and evaluated how these changes affected the perceived youthfulness of faces. The results indicate that natural age-related changes in color indeed provide cues for age perception, separate from luminance information.

Moreover, they discovered that the most effective red-green contrast level to make faces appear as young as possible was notably higher than their original levels, implying that faces generally seemed younger when their redness was heightened, despite the fact that average face redness tends to increase with age. Their analysis further revealed that younger faces needed more substantial increases in redness to achieve the appearance of youthfulness compared to older faces.

These findings suggest that the spatial arrangement of redness plays a significant role in creating the impression of youthfulness, particularly in younger individuals.