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Study Confirms That Cars Have Personalities

Posted by kdawson on from the disney-is-unsurprised dept.

Ponca City, We love you writes "A study has confirmed that many people see human facial features in the front ends of automobiles and ascribe various personality traits to cars. Forty study participants assessed cars based on a system known as geometric morphometrics by viewing high-resolution, 3D computer reconstructions and printed images of 38 actual 2004-06 car models and rating each model on 19 traits such as dominance, maturity, gender, and friendliness, and if they liked the car. Study participants liked best the cars scoring high in the so-called power traits — the most mature, masculine, arrogant, and angry-looking ones. Researchers theorized that over evolutionary time, humans have developed a selective sensitivity to features in the human face that convey information on sex, age, emotions, and intentions. The lead researcher explained, 'Seeing too many faces, even in mountains or toast, has little or no penalty, but missing or misinterpreting the face of a predator or attacker could be fatal.'"

7 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Of course... by maz2331 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Those features are there by design. Marketing tells engineering to make it so.

    1. Re:Of course... by Z00L00K · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A car's personality is more than it's looks.

      If it was only the look of the Miata that counted then it wouldn't have been such a success.

      It's also about how it feels to drive and how well the design of the driver's area is done.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  2. I'm getting a bit tired... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm getting a bit tired of Slashdot trolling its own users just to create discussions. Maybe this wasn't the best news post to comment on since only the title is bad but I'm sure most know what I'm talking about. Why can't you just make good titles and good summaries? Do bad ones really generate that many more clicks (ad views)?

  3. Uh... Duh... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 4, Insightful

    people have been doing caricatures of automobile "faces" since early 20th century. I mean like 1910. If people did not "see" faces in automobiles, the excellent Pixar movie "Cars" would have had no entertainment value. It would have just been... weird.

    And if people are going to see "faces" in automobiles, they are going to see expressions, too.

    Did somebody actually get CREDIT for doing this study, which appears to be a phenomenal statement of the obvious?

    1. Re:Uh... Duh... by quintesse · · Score: 3, Insightful

      True, even the earliest Disney cartoons gave cars faces (well, they gave faces to just about anything but that's beside the point, my point anyway)

      But come on, don't tell me car designers, at least nowadays, don't know perfectly well that people see faces in their cars... because they put them there!

      The study should have been backward: do car designers make cars look to have human facial expressions?

      The value of the study would have been the same though: null, void, zilch. God what a waste of time.

  4. Re:There's a reason some cars cost more than other by exley · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why don't they take a cheap car and put a sexy face on it? Because then nobody would buy the expensive cars.

    Ummm, so couldn't someone who makes a cheaper car put a little bit more effort into how the car looks and make more money off it? Either through higher sticker price or increased sales?

    Drive a car like a BMW or Porsche or whatever -- I mean really drive it like it's capable of being driven -- and you'll understand a little better why cars like that cost more. I know what comes next: Overpriced? Depends on who you ask.

  5. All cars look like animals by erroneus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I did a study on cars and asked like 40 of my friends to rate a bunch of cars selected at random. The options for choices were "like a squirrel", "like a fox", "like a tiger", "like a bird", "like a bear" and "like a turtle." Without exception, everyone likened each car presented to some kind of animal. Therefore people think all cars look like animals.

    Did anyone catch the flaw?

    Now go back and look at the summary. All of the words given as choices in describing the cars are closely linked to personality traits. So of COURSE they will be perceived to have personalities if they are described in those terms!