Preprints

2024

PsyArXiv
Cues driving trait impressions in naturalistic contexts are sparse

Ruoying Zheng and Chujun Lin

PsyArXiv, 2024

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Trait impressions are ubiquitous and shape consequential decisions. Prior work investigated what information people used for traitimpressions using artificial designs. To advance a naturalistic understanding, we applied novel computational tools to quantify comprehensive cuesbased onprior theories (facial, bodily, clothing, environmental cues) (Study 1) and manipulate individual cues realistically (Study 2) in naturalistic images. Across two pre-registered studies (N1 = 2,435 U.S. representative; N2 = 569), we found that with rich information available, the cues predicting traitimpressions were sparse. We confirmed for a subset of cues that these predictionswere causal. Predictivecues carriedunique information beyond the consistent information shared with other available cues. Unpredictive cues played a role by shapingthe utilization of predictive cues through interactions. Together, ourfindings suggest that the mind may have evolvedto utilize the naturalistic relations between cues to simplify what information to attend to when forming trait impressions.
@article{ZHENG2024, title = {Cues driving trait impressions in naturalistic contexts are sparse}, author = {Zheng, Ruoying and Lin, Chujun}, journal = {PsyArXiv}, year = {2024}, url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/v39tk}, doi = {10.31234/osf.io/v39tk}, }

Journal Articles

2025

AffectSci

Investigating the Structure of Emotion: Tools, Pitfalls and Recommendations

Chujun Lin, Yanting Han, Umit Keles, and 4 more authors

Affective Science, 2025

Bib

@article{lin2025investigating,
  title = {Investigating the Structure of Emotion: Tools, Pitfalls and Recommendations},
  author = {Lin, Chujun and Han, Yanting and Keles, Umit and Xu, Yue and Lu, Junsong and Zheng, Ruoying and Adolphs, Ralph},
  journal = {Affective Science},
  pages = {1-19},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {Springer}
}

CR:PI
Unveiling the “Less is More” paradox: How experience and cognitive filling drive attractiveness in occluded faces

Yurou Gao, Mengliang Cao, Ruoying Zheng, and 1 more author

Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 2025

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The “Less is More” phenomenon, the intriguing elevation of facial attractiveness under conditions of limited visual information (e.g., masked faces), has garnered significant attention since the COVID-19 pandemic. This study delves into the influence of experience on this phenomenon and its underlying cognitive mechanisms through three experiments. Experiment 1 examined attractiveness ratings of occluded, predicted and complete faces with four occlusion types before and after the pandemic onset. Experiment 2 investigated how participants mentally complete faces occluded by sunglasses by selecting from high-, low-attractiveness, and average eye representations. Experiment 3 explored the impact of familiarity. Participants first familiarized themselves with half of the faces, then rated the attractiveness of the occluded and predicted versions of all familiar and unfamiliar faces, and finally chose the original complete face from a set of foils (high-attractiveness, low-attractiveness, and average face) . Across all experiments, the inherent attractiveness of the complete faces was manipulated. Our findings reveal a clear effect of experience on the “Less is More” effect: it was amplified post-pandemic (Experiment 1), more pronounced for unfamiliar faces (Experiment 3), and consistently stronger for initially low-attractiveness faces. Selection patterns in Experiments 2 and 3, with average faces chosen most often for unfamiliar faces, support the Average/Typical Filling hypothesis. However, familiar faces elicited a preference for the original features, suggesting a memory-driven process. These results revealed a dynamic interplay between prior experience and visual constraints in shaping facial attractiveness perception.
@article{gao2025unveiling, title = {Unveiling the “Less is More” paradox: How experience and cognitive filling drive attractiveness in occluded faces}, author = {Gao, Yurou and Cao, Mengliang and Zheng, Ruoying and Zhou, Guomei}, journal = {Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications}, volume = {10}, number = {1}, pages = {81}, year = {2025}, publisher = {Springer}, doi = {10.1186/s41235-025-00691-w}, url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s41235-025-00691-w}, keywords = {Less is More, Facial attractiveness, Occlusion, Information shortage, COVID-19, Experience, Familiarity, Average face, Average/typical filling hypothesis, Matching filling hypothesis}, }
ACA
Spirit behind appearance: Facial motion increases facial attractiveness through perceived vitality.

Ruoying Zheng, Bo Yang, and Guomei Zhou

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 2025

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Artists show the beauty of life by depicting bodily movement, suggesting vitality. However, the role of vitality in ratings of facial attractiveness remains understudied. This study explored whether vitality led to the higher attractiveness of dynamic faces. We manipulated facial motion into dynamic, scrambled, and static conditions (Experiments 1 and 2) and primed facial vitality with vitality labels (Experiment 2). Participants rated vitality (Experiments 1 and 2), attractiveness (Experiments 1 and 2), and subjective processing fluency (Experiment 2). Both Experiments 1 and 2 found dynamic faces had higher vitality and attractiveness than static ones, and vitality mediated the relationship between motion and facial attractiveness. Subjective processing fluency had no mediating effect between motion and facial attractiveness. In Experiment 3, we not only replicated this mediating effect with human face stimuli but also generalized this mediating effect to nonface stimuli (animal, inanimate object, and plant) with different vitality forms (exploding, fading, and pulsing). Based on the results, we discuss the aesthetic value of vitality and explain how dynamic stimuli enhance attractiveness.
@article{zheng2025spirit, title = {Spirit behind appearance: Facial motion increases facial attractiveness through perceived vitality.}, author = {Zheng, Ruoying and Yang, Bo and Zhou, Guomei}, journal = {Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts}, volume = {19}, number = {4}, pages = {622}, year = {2025}, doi = {10.1037/aca0000551}, url = {https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2023-71141-001.html}, publisher = {Educational Publishing Foundation}, keywords = {Facial attractiveness, Aesthetics, Dynamic, Vitality, Animacy}, }
SocCogn
A tutorial on representational similarity analysis for research in social cognition

Sally Xie, Ruoying Zheng, Eric Hehman, and 1 more author

Social Cognition, 2025

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Representational similarity analysis (RSA) is a simple and widely used technique forcomparingrelationships between diversetypes of measures usinga common set of elements. For instance, RSA allows researchers tocompare brain and behavioral measuresof the same set of participants, or response patternsto the same set of stimuli acrossdifferent conditions. This technique effectively quantifiesrelationships between complex, high-dimensional measureseven when their measurement unitsare not directly comparable, contributing to its recent popularity. However,existing tutorials focus on neuroscience use cases, limiting their applicability to social cognitive research. This tutorial covers an accessible introduction to RSA, discussing its strengths and limitations compared to other multivariate methods. We provide commented code and functions in R and Python in the context of two examples that showcase different applications of RSA, illustrating its potentialto address questions of broad interest to the field of social cognition.
@article{xietutorial, title = {A tutorial on representational similarity analysis for research in social cognition}, author = {Xie, Sally and Zheng, Ruoying and Hehman, Eric and Lin, Chujun}, journal = {Social Cognition}, year = {2025}, volume = {}, eid = {}, pages = {}, note = {}, url = {}, doi = {10.31234/osf.io/x4stc}, }

2024

AdvPsychSci
The role of sleep in consolidating memory of learning in infants and toddlers

Zhilin Peng, Ruoying Zheng, Xiaoqing Hu, and 1 more author

Advances in Psychological Science, 2024

In Chinese

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Sleep-dependent memory consolidation refers to the process during sleep in which the brain reprocesses and reinforces newly acquired information or skills, thereby enhancing the stability and longevity of memories. Sleep plays a pivotal role in consolidating recently acquired knowledge into enduring long-term memories. The influence of sleep-dependent memory consolidation varies depending on the type of memory, with different stages and characteristics of sleep exerting distinct effects on various memory processes. Given the significant differences in sleep structure and physiological mechanisms between infants and adults, it is imperative not to extrapolate findings from adult studies directly to infants and toddlers. Additionally, owing to the remarkable neuroplasticity of the infant brain and its unique sleep patterns, investigating the impact of sleep on memory consolidation in infants can significantly deepen our comprehension of the neural mechanisms underlying sleep-dependent memory consolidation. Building upon adult research, we present a synthesis of recent studies focusing on infants and toddlers, highlighting the critical role of sleep in memory consolidation during early development. Infants and toddlers who nap or sleep after learning consistently exhibit superior memory retention and enhanced problem-solving abilities compared to those who remain awake. During sleep, brain regions associated with memory, such as the hippocampus and medial temporal lobe, demonstrate significant activation. Distinct electroencephalogram (EEG) features, such as sleep spindles and slow waves, correlate with memory consolidation in infants and toddlers. This paper addresses two primary forms of memory: declarative memory and procedural memory, shedding light on the impact of sleep-dependent memory consolidation in infants. In the realm of declarative memory, sleep enhances the quantity and accuracy of various episodic memory components, encompassing cartoon faces, toy manipulation, spatial locations, and chronological sequences. Moreover, distinct sleep features, such as sleep spindles and slow waves, make unique contributions to different episodic memories. Sleep also fosters selective memory consolidation, knowledge transfer, and the activation of memory-related brain regions, including the hippocampus, in infants and young children. These findings furnish valuable insights into the neural mechanisms governing sleep’s role in early episodic memory development. Regarding procedural memory, though limited studies exist on the relationship between infant sleep and procedural memory consolidation, some evidence suggests a positive influence of sleep on infant procedural memory. Future research should explore the interplay between sleep and motor skill development in infants, with particular emphasis on the role of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, as adult studies underscore its significance in procedural memory consolidation. Despite the progress in this field, several unresolved questions persist. Future research should aim to address whether sleep exerts a memory-consolidating effect on newborns, elucidate the distinctions between sleep-dependent memory consolidation in infants and adults, systematically investigate the impact of sleep on infants’ social and language learning, and discern how different sleep types, durations, and timings in infants and young children contribute to memory consolidation.
@article{peng2024role, title = {The role of sleep in consolidating memory of learning in infants and toddlers}, author = {Peng, Zhilin and Zheng, Ruoying and Hu, Xiaoqing and Zhang, Dandan}, journal = {Advances in Psychological Science}, year = {2024}, volume = {32}, number = {2}, eid = {287}, pages = {287-299}, note = {In Chinese}, url = {https://journal.psych.ac.cn/xlkxjz/EN/10.3724/SP.J.1042.2024.00287}, doi = {10.3724/SP.J.1042.2024.00287}, keywords = {infants and toddlers;sleep;memory consolidation;sleep slow waves;sleep spindles}, }

2022

AdvPsychSci
The holistic representation of facial attractiveness and the attractiveness enhancement mechanism of dynamic faces

Guomei Zhou, Ruoying Zheng, Jia Lin, and 1 more author

Advances in Psychological Science, 2022

In Chinese

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Face, as a high-level visual stimulus, has an irreplaceable role in interpersonal interaction. In particular, facial attractiveness influences major social decisions in our daily life, such as mate selection, hiring judgment, and social exchange. For a long time, researchers have been exploring the perception of static facial attractiveness from the perspectives of facial features, social information, and observer factors, and they have for the most part adopted an evolutionary approach. However, regarding the representation of facial attractiveness and the attractiveness enhancement effect of dynamic faces, very little is known about the underlying mechanisms. The current project attempts to answer these questions through two studies that focus respectively on the holistic representation of facial attractiveness and attractiveness enhancement effect of facial motion through its influence on holistic processing, attention to holistic/local features, and social information of faces. In Study 1, we will explore the cognitive representation of facial attractiveness from a holistic processing perspective. Study 1.1 adopts a rating task and the adaptation paradigm to examine the effects of high spatial frequency (more local features) and low spatial frequency (more holistic features) on facial attractiveness. If the representation of facial attractiveness is holistic, then faces with low spatial frequencies will naturally be found more attractive than faces with high spatial frequencies. Study 1.2 manipulates facial symmetry and facial normality to examine the mediating effect of facial normality between facial symmetry and facial attractiveness, which will reflect the holistic normality representation of facial attractiveness. Study 1.3 introduces the traditional Chinese aesthetic theory "Three Forehead and Five Eyes" to explore the holistic representation of facial attractiveness. We will use a rating task and the adaptation paradigm to investigate whether this "Three Forehead and Five Eyes" facial configuration matches Chinese people’s representation of attractive Chinese faces. Study 1.4 examines whether partial face masking facilitates overall facial attractiveness and whether this facilitation effect is due to people imagining the intact face through its parts. In Study 2, we will explore the attractiveness enhancement mechanism of dynamic faces in terms of holistic processing, attention, and vitality. Study 2.1 uses a composite face paradigm to measure the holistic processing of dynamic and static facial attractiveness, which delves into whether differences in attractiveness between static and dynamic faces arise from differences in their holistic processing. In Study 2.2, using a dual-task paradigm and incorporating eye-movement techniques, we will explore whether there are differences in the attention patterns of dynamic and static faces and whether such differences could explain the attractiveness enhancement of dynamic faces. Study 2.3 combined the use of questionnaire, behavioral experiment, and structural equation modeling to examine the effect of vitality on the attractiveness of dynamic and static faces. This project aims to explore the cognitive representation of facial attractiveness and the attractiveness enhancement mechanism of dynamic faces, which will further our understanding of the cognitive mechanism of facial attractiveness and the high-level intelligence required for human aesthetic perception. Furthermore, the results of this project will have potential applications elsewhere, such as facilitating daily interpersonal interactions, optimizing algorithms related to facial attractiveness and so on.
@article{zhou2022holistic, title = {The holistic representation of facial attractiveness and the attractiveness enhancement mechanism of dynamic faces}, author = {Zhou, Guomei and Zheng, Ruoying and Lin, Jia and Liu, Xinge}, journal = {Advances in Psychological Science}, year = {2022}, volume = {30}, number = {7}, pages = {1429-1438}, note = {In Chinese}, url = {http://www.sciengine.com/publisher/Beijing Zhongke Journal Publising Co. Ltd./journal/Advances in Psychological Science/30/7/10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.01429}, doi = {10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.01429}, keywords = {Cognitive aesthetics, Aesthetic perception, Facial attractiveness, Attention, Holistic processing}, }

2021

ActaPsychol
Normality mediates the effect of symmetry on facial attractiveness

Ruoying Zheng, Dongyan Ren, Chunyan Xie, and 2 more authors

Acta Psychologica, 2021

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Although symmetry, averageness, and sexual dimorphism are usually considered important to facial attractiveness, there are mixed findings regarding whether and how symmetry influences facial attractiveness. The present study introduced “facial normality” to explain the inconsistency of previous research. We hypothesized that symmetry only increased facial attractiveness when it improved facial normality. We manipulated symmetry and normality simultaneously on sixteen Chinese male faces and asked participants to rate the perceived symmetry, perceived normality, and facial attractiveness. The results demonstrated an interactive effect of symmetry and normality on facial attractiveness. The structural equation model results showed two paths from symmetry to facial attractiveness: (1) Symmetry reduced facial attractiveness by decreasing perceived normality; (2) Symmetry increased facial attractiveness by increasing the perceived symmetry and then improving perceived normality. In other words, perceived normality acted as a mediator between symmetry and facial attractiveness. The present study provides a solution to the different effects of symmetry on facial attractiveness in previous studies and suggests that future studies on symmetry and facial attractiveness should consider the mediating role of normality.
@article{zheng2021normality, title = {Normality mediates the effect of symmetry on facial attractiveness}, journal = {Acta Psychologica}, volume = {217}, pages = {103311}, year = {2021}, publisher = {Elsevier}, issn = {0001-6918}, doi = {10.1016/j.actpsy.2021.103311}, url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691821000615}, author = {Zheng, Ruoying and Ren, Dongyan and Xie, Chunyan and Pan, Junhao and Zhou, Guomei}, keywords = {Symmetry, Normality, Averageness, Facial attractiveness, Fluctuating asymmetry, Prototype}, }

Manuscripts

Social binding of dyad faces did not improve paired face recognition but impaired individual face recognition

Bo Yang, Ruoying Zheng, and Guomei Zhou

In Preparation
The observer-target-context model: Cheerleader effect in multiple social groups

Ruoying Zheng and Guomei Zhou

In Preparation
Attention modulates the ensemble perception of faces

Ruoying Zheng, Bin Chen, Wenfeng Chen, and 1 more author

In Preparation
Attention modulates the perception of facial attractiveness

Ruoying Zheng, Lewei Chen, and Guomei Zhou

In Preparation
The ensemble perception of socially interactive dyadic faces

Bo Yang, Ruoying Zheng, and Guomei Zhou

In Preparation

Presentations

2025

CogSci

The paradox of trait impressions in naturalistic contexts: Rich information, sparse predictive cues.

Ruoying Zheng and Chujun Lin

In the 47th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Aug 2025
SPSP

Cues driving trait impressions in naturalistic contexts are sparse

Ruoying Zheng and Chujun Lin

In Symposium “Enhancing theory with math: Computationally modeling Social Psychological phenomena” at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s Annual Convention, Feb 2025

2024

A comprehensive characterization of visual information determinants for first impressions in naturalistic images

Ruoying Zheng and Chujun Lin

In Symposium “Face Processing Research in the AI Era” at the 13th Conference for Chinese Psychologists, Oct 2024

2022

VSS

My group is more important than yours in the Cheerleader Effect of facial attractiveness perception

Ruoying Zheng and Guomei Zhou

In Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting, Jun 2022

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Our judgment of a target is influenced by its context. So is it for the judgment of facial attractiveness. The current research aimed to explore when there were multiple social groups in the context, how faces of different social groups affected the attractiveness of an individual face, resulting in varying degrees of cheerleader effect. We presented the target face individually or in the context containing two social groups: both the own group and the other group of the target face and manipulated the context into five conditions: HOHT (high attractive own group and high attractive other group), HOLT (high attractive own group and low attractive other group), LOHT (low attractive own group and high attractive other group), LOLT (low attractive own group and low attractive other group), ALONE (no surrounding faces). Target faces were nine faces with continuously increasing attractiveness. We used Black female faces and White female faces as two social groups in Experiment 1a and 2a, and Asian female faces and White female faces in Experiment 1b and 2b. The task in Experiment 1 was to judge whether the target face in each context was attractive or unattractive. The task in Experiment 2 was to rate the attractiveness of the target face in each context. Both experiments showed the contrast effect that the attractiveness of target faces increased significantly in LOLT, with ALONE as the baseline. Besides, Experiment 2 showed that the attractiveness increment of the target face in LOHT and HOLT was also significant with the effect in LOLT being greater than that in LOHT which was greater than that in HOLT. Our results indicated that low attractive surrounding faces increased the attractiveness of the target face, and the weight of the own group was greater than that of the other group.

2021

VSS

Vitality makes dynamic faces more attractive than static faces

Ruoying Zheng and Guomei Zhou

In Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting, May 2021

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In recent years, short-form videos have been exploding on social media. People are addicted to taking vibrant, dynamic selfie videos instead of static selfies. We hypothesized that it is the vividness in videos, compared with static pictures, making people more appealing. Therefore, the present research aimed to investigate whether vitality made dynamic faces more attractive than static ones. We obtained face stimuli from social networks and generated them into three different motion state faces (dynamic, static, and dynamic faces played in scrambled frames). Participants rated the attractiveness (Experiment 1&2), vitality (Experiment 1&2), and subjective processing fluency (Experiment 2) of these faces and were primed with different labels of vitality (high, low, and non) in Experiment 2. As expected, dynamic faces had greater vitality and higher attractiveness than static ones. High-vitality labels made faces more attractive than low-vitality labels. Furthermore, vitality rather than subjective processing fluency mediated the relationship between motion states and facial attractiveness. In Experiment 3, we further examined whether the vitality effect could be generalized to other stimuli. We adopted videos of humans, plants, animals, and inanimate objects as stimuli and generated them into two motion states (dynamic and static). Again, we found vitality mediated the relationship between motion states and facial attractiveness regardless of stimuli type. These results indicate that vitality is an essential factor that accounts for the more attractiveness of dynamic stimuli than static ones.
Normality mediates the effect of symmetry on facial attractiveness

Ruoying Zheng, Dongyan Ren, Chunyan Xie, and 2 more authors

In International Joint Forum of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Apr 2021

Abs Slides

There are mixed findings regarding whether and how symmetry influences facial attractiveness. The present study introduced “facial normality” to explain this inconsistency and hypothesized that symmetry increased facial attractiveness only when it improves facial normality. The authors manipulated symmetry and normality simultaneously on sixteen Chinese male faces and asked participants to rate the perceived symmetry, perceived normality, and facial attractiveness. The results demonstrated an interactive effect of symmetry and normality on facial attractiveness. The structural equation model showed perceived normality acted as a mediator between symmetry and facial attractiveness. The present study explains the different effects of symmetry on facial attractiveness in previous studies and highlights the mediating role of normality.