Scientists: Cars are taken at 'face value'
People think the front of cars look like faces and even expect them to have a personality based on their 'facial features' research has found.
The experts say humans have developed an ability to collect information on people's sex, age, emotions, and intentions by looking at their faces.
Now they suggest we try to do the same with inanimate objects and asked people to report the characteristics, emotions and attitudes that they ascribed to car fronts.
Most people liked cars which had a wide stance, a narrow windshield, and/or widely spaced, narrow headlights, like sports-cars such as a Mercedes SLK.
One of the researchers said: "We show that distinct features in the car fronts correspond to different trait attributions.
"Humans possibly interpret even inanimate structures in biological terms, which could have implications for driving and pedestrian behavior."
The better the subjects liked a car, the more it bore shape characteristics corresponding to high values of what the authors termed "power", indicating that both men and women like mature, dominant, masculine, arrogant, angry-looking cars.
