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Study Confirms That Cars Have Personalities
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.'"
Study confirms that Slashdot has dupes.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Those features are there by design. Marketing tells engineering to make it so.
They are doing research on what the front of that flying car should look like.
It IS the third millennium, I would like my flying car already.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
The easiest way to change the PERCEPTION of value is to alter the "Face" on the front of the car. Expensive cars have a face that is smarter, sleeker, sexier, more masculine, etc. Take a look at a BMW, how the shape of the headlights and the grille combine to make the characteristic BMW face. Cheap cars have weak, stupid, submissive faces. Why don't they take a cheap car and put a sexy face on it? Because then nobody would buy the expensive cars.
With a porcupine, the pricks are on the outside! // old joke // had 3 bimmers, miss them all
erm, that and the BMW is made to much higher standards, has 10's of millions of RnD put into it and has superior materials used in it. you aren't suggesting a BMW is the same as a KIA, are you?
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
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)?
Cars not only have personalities, they have souls! Every morning I beseech the machine spirit of my car to start the engine and have it run smoothly and reliably. It's worked so far.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
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?
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.
I hope to someday be able to purchase an internationally-marketed mass produced automobile that speaks to my own sense of individuality. I will perhaps get a GMC Acadia, but with a towhook package, or a Volkswagen Golf with a turbocharged engine instead of normally-aspirated and an iPod dock. I will then most likely get a tribal tattoo. I'm young, tech-savy,cyber-edgy and stickin' it to society's traditional values!
I get that. Which was my point: someone actually got credit for this "study"? The results of which should be obvious to anyone who has taken Psych 101 + Soc 101 at University?
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!
Not always. Take the original Mini or Beetle for example.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Fit a lawn mower in the boot too.
and another lawn mower engine in the front
I am not stubborn. I am right!
The perceived personality that TFA talks about has little to do with a car's actual performance characteristics and more to do with how the car owner wishes to be perceived, at least to anyone who knows the first thing about cars. Round "open-eyed" headlights and a surprised mouth may suggest some sort of anime-style "passive femininity" to people who aren't familiar with, say, a Shelby Cobra or Ferrari Barchetta, but eventually even the nonenthusiast consumer will learn that "angry aerodynamic eyebrow" headlights and "low-slung frowny grilles" can be just as easily applied to mediocre grocery-getting minivans as high-end sports cars. The face of one's car tends to say far more about its owner than it does about the car itself.
Look at the front of a Prius. Obviously not marketed towards macho leadfoot NASCAR wannabes, but look: The grille is clearly smiling at you, but the headlights connote a high-tech aerodynamic (albeit not unfriendly) robot, in contrast to the helpful eager puppy look of, say, a new Thunderbird.
(For my (nonexistent) money, the new car that strikes the best balance is the new Challenger. The headlights are browed just right to look serious without being psychopathically aggressive, and in combination with the slightly smirking lower (intercooler?) intake the whole face looks confident without being obnoxiously threatening. It would have been a much better Bumblebee than that stupid Camaro.)
Sure. So most German car manufacturers like Audi, VW, BMW and Mercedes will give you 10+ years of warranty on the chassis of the car because they all know that their cars will turn to rust in 5 or 6 years?
Now the body work, that's interesting... Most European cars nowadays will have more plastic for body work than anything else, if you look at Renault for instance, it's pure plastic. This is done to protect the driver and fellow road users on impact. The car will simply shred.
As an added bonus, since it's Not Metal (TM), it don't rust. BMW is currently investigating the use of cloth, enforced with carbon, which can shape-shift for their bodies, so I'm really wondering what the hell you're basing your claims on.
Now I'm not going to diss on KIA. I've been driving a Hyundai i30 to great satisfaction for a while, and lord knows Toyota's never ever break, so I have no beef with Asian cars. I do however observe that KIA and Mazda are behind on their materials. Toyota and Honda aren't, or less so, but KIA, Hyundai and Mazda feel a lot more "Tin-Can-ish" than their modern European counterparts.
IANACE though. I am not a car expert though. But then I don't make categorical statements without any back up. :-D
Because then nobody would buy the expensive cars.
Unlikely to be true. Cars are a status symbol. Cars are also the most expensive impulse purchase most will ever own. The combination of the two ensures the wealthy will continue to purchase cars simply because they are expensive - so long as the general public is also aware they are expensive.
Over the last three decades, some of the most expensive luxury cars have had some of the worst mechanical reliability problems and sales continued strong. The wealthy don't care if it runs good. The wealthy generally don't care what it looks like. The bottom line, does it project a sense of wealth, status, and entitlement? If the answer is yes, the vehicle will sell. Look at how ugly some of the high end luxury cars were during the 80s and 90s for proof.
I remember during the 80's someone wrote Ann Landers complaining their high end luxury car came with tinted windows and no one was able to see him using his cell phone - or for that matter, see him driving his uber expensive vehicle. Remember, this is when cel phones were attached to the vehicle and simply owning one had status implications. He was most upset about it. And that mentality is what rules the roost. It's about status and convincing the general public his tiny penis is actually larger than yours - nothing else.