Is Your Car’s “Face” Sad, Angry, Imposing, or Friendly? |
Our brain/minds play at seeing faces on cars.
Seeing a car’s “face” is like seeing the Man in the Moon.
Culture shapes the patterns we recognize, as different societies see different figures in the moon.
When you look at your car, does it stare back? And what expression does it seem to hold? These two questions are surprisingly strange because a car is made of metal, glass, and plastic, and it cannot stare. A car cannot have an expression because a facial expression communicates emotions, and only animals—especially mammals like us humans—have an inner life that can be read on a face.
A face takes on the outward sign of what is going on inside. A face can look happy and expectant. This is the wide-eyed, open, inviting, and smiling “play face” that needs no translation anywhere in the world. We know when a kid is ready to play, wondering what’s next. At the opposite end of the spectrum, a human face can look angry and fearful, and this is one of the most complicated expressions. When the eyebrows pull together and draw downward, observers interpret anger. Add eyebrows turned up at the corner, and we see how the face registers fear. This “blended” expression is also universally and wordlessly understood.
In fact, the human face can explicitly communicate a range of subtle states of mind that others read. With sadness, of course, the brows invert, and the eyelids droop. But more subtly and with more complexity, a sad face can project chagrin or wistfulness, various species of regret, or longing. A face will register shock but can show the effect of more complicated internal turmoil, such as disbelieving shock—this can’t be happening! We know a patient look when we see it, and we know........