We look right below the eyes to judge faces

 — In the first crucial moment of determining another person’s identity, gender, and emotional state, we often glance just below the eyes

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At least for the three important tasks investigated—identity, emotion, and gender—below the eyes is the optimal place to look, say the scientists, because it allows one to read information from as many features of the face as possible.

“What the visual system is adept at doing is taking all those pieces of information from your face and combining them in a statistical manner to make a judgment about whatever task you’re doing,” says Eckstein.

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