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Dr Ian Penton-Voak

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telephone: +44 (0)117 92 88667 email: I.S.Penton-Voak@bris.ac.uk

Room 5D20

Biographical details

I studied for my first degree (B.A. Psych) at the University of Manchester from 1991-94. I stayed at Manchester for my M.Sc. which investigated human timing behaviour (scalar timing and internal clocks) with Prof. John Wearden. I then moved to St. Andrews, initially to teach research methods and subsequently to study for my Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Dave Perrett. Since completing my Ph.D., I’ve lectured at St. Andrews and Stirling Universities. I moved to Bristol as a Senior Lecturer in August 2004.


Research interests

I study human behaviour in the context of our evolutionary history. My work has concentrates on perception of social properties of faces, particularly attractiveness. A lot of this work is strongly influenced by theories of sexual selection proposed by evolutionary biologists. I also have strong interests in the perception of emotion and the social perception of personality.


Recent and ongoing projects

Currently, I’m working on several externally funded projects:

Effects of Alcohol on Rating of Attractiveness: Examining the role of alcohol in social interaction.

European Research Advisory Board Grant EA 08 20. (2009-2010) €60,000. With Marcus Munafò, M.R.

This grant continues our investigations of the influence that alcohol may have on the social perception of faces.

Investigations of sensitivity to facial expressions of emotion during pregnancy and post-partum

British Academy research grant (May 2007 - May 2009). With Rebecca Pearson and Jonathan Evans.

Growing evidence suggests that women’s perception of emotional expressions varies as a result of hormonal activity. For example, it has been demonstrated that women have better recognition of fearful facial expressions at stages of the menstrual cycle when oestrogen levels are high, and that expressions signalling nearby danger or contagion are more salient when progesterone is elevated. Functional (evolutionary) explanations for these phenomena suggest that such shifts in social perception may be adaptations to reduce the risk of disease or physical threat damaging the foetus during pregnancy, but no systematic work examining facial expression perception across pregnancy has been carried out to date. The research outlined here proposes to perform a longitudinal study of women across pregnancy to test adaptationist hypotheses of variability in the social perception of emotional expression.

Dynamic cues of proceptivity, signal direction, and their influence on attractiveness judgements

ESRC research grant (December 2006 – November 2008). With Andrew Clark.

Attractiveness is a fundamental variable in our social lives, exerting considerable influence on our personal and professional relationships. Evolutionary approaches have proved fruitful in investigating this issue. Appearance affects attractiveness because physical structure conveys information about mate value (the long- and short-term reproductive benefits associated with a partner). Dyadic behaviour also provides information to potential mates, but has received less attention in evolutionary research. In this project, we are conducting a series of studies investigating the interactions between proceptivity, direction of signal, and the sex of both the receiver and signaller.

Effects of Alcohol Consumption on Processing of Perceptual Cues of Emotional Expression 2.

AERC research grant (March 2007 – February 2008), With Marcus Munafo, Christopher Benton & Angela Attwood.

There is substantial current concern, in part following liberalisation of licensing laws in the UK, regarding the effects of alcohol on aggressive behaviour and violent crime. Our proposed research will inform this debate, and investigate the effects of alcohol on social perception, a potentially causal factor in aggressive behaviour. We aim to determine whether acute alcohol consumption in social alcohol users induces differences in sensitivity to perceptual cues of facial emotional expression.

Cross-cultural investigations of strategic face preferences in Humans

Leverhulme Trust research grant (October 2006 – September 2009). With Steven Josephson and Isabel Scott

Evolutionary biological models of mate preference have informed both psychological and anthropological studies of human facial attractiveness. Our increasing understanding of these preferences has produced new hypotheses predicting variability in preferences across varying ecologies and cultures. This project will integrate psychological tests with anthropological data from multiple populations to demonstrate how preference mechanisms produce biologically meaningful variability in response to the physical and social environment. Such novel interdisciplinary findings will represent an empirical and theoretical advance in psychology, biology and anthropology. See project website at: www.demc.org

Adult attachment and the perceptual processing of facial expressions of emotion

ESRC research grant (June 2006 – May 2009). With Angela Rowe, Casimir Ludwig & Robbie Cooper

High quality close relationships are important for emotional well-being and mental health. A critical factor influencing relationships across the life span is attachment style. Attachment styles are relationship representations containing a model of self and other in relationships and interactional scripts. They derive from interactions with caregivers during development and are activated in relationship-relevant situations, guiding behaviour, cognition and affect regulation. Insecure attachment styles are associated with poor relationship quality and psychological maladjustment. Attachment styles also influences the processing of emotional, yet the psychological mechanisms underpinning these processing differences are currently poorly specified. By using methodologies including psychophysics, attentional tasks and eye-tracking, we aim to explore these mechanisms.

Selected publications

Attwood, A.S., Penton-Voak, I.S., Munafò, M.R. (in press). Effects of acute nicotine administration on ratings of attractiveness of facial cues. Nicotine and Tobacco Research

Clark, A.P., Morrison, E.R., Jack, V. & Penton-Voak, I.S. (in press) Attractiveness in flux: female preferences for male facial motion depend on mating context and non-additive cues to prosociality and proceptivity. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology

Attwood, A.S., Ataya, A. Benton, C.P., Penton-Voak, I.S., Munafò, M.R. (in press) Effects of alcohol consumption and alcohol expectancy on the categorization of perceptual cues of emotional expression . Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Craig, L.C., Attwood, A.S., Benton, C.P., Penton-Voak, I.S. & Munafò, M.R. (in press). Effects of acute alcohol consumption and alcohol expectancy on processing of perceptual cues of emotional expression. Journal of Psychopharmacology. doi:10.1177/0269881108089604

Parker, L.C., Penton-Voak, I.S., Attwood, A.S., Munafò, M.R. (in press) Effects of Acute Alcohol Consumption on Ratings of Attractiveness of Facial Stimuli: Evidence of long-term encoding. Alcohol and Alcoholism

Attwood, A., Ohlson, C., Benton, C.P., Penton-Voak, I.S. & Munafò, M.R. (in press). Effects of acute alcohol consumption on processing of perceptual cues of emotional expression. Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Pound, N., Penton-Voak, I.S., Surridge, A.K. (2009) Testosterone responses to competition in men are related to facial masculinity. Proceedings of the Royal Society, B. 276, 153-159.

Cooper, R.M., Rowe, A.C. & Penton-Voak, I.S. (2008). The role of trait anxiety in the recognition of emotional facial expressions. Journal of Anxiety Disorders. 22, 1120-1127

Scott, I., Swami, V., Josephson, S.C. & Penton-Voak, I.S. (2008) Context-dependent preferences for facial sexual dimorphism in a rural Malaysian population. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29, 289-296.

Penton-Voak, I.S., & Chang, H.Y. (2008) Attractiveness judgements of individuals vary across emotional expression and movement conditions. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology. 6, 89-100.

Penton-Voak, I. S., Rowe, A.C., & Williams, J. (2007). Through rose-tinted glasses: Relationship satisfaction and representations of partners’ facial attractiveness. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 5, 169-181.

Penton-Voak, I.S., Allen, T., Morrison, E.R., Gralewski, L., & Campbell, N. (2007). Performance on a face perception task is associated with empathy quotient scores, but not systemizing scores or participant sex. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 2229-2236.

Benton, C.P., Etchells, P., Porter, G., Clark, A.P., Penton-Voak, I.S., & Nikolov, S.G. (2007). Turning the other cheek: the viewpoint dependence of facial expression aftereffects. Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, 2131-2137.

Pound, N., Penton-Voak, I.S., & Brown, W.M. (2007). Facial symmetry is positively associated with self-reported extraversion. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 1572-1582.

Penton-Voak, I.S., Cahill, S. Pound, N., Kempe, V., Biersack, S. & Schaeffler, F. (2007) Male facial attractiveness, perceived personality, and child-directed speech. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28: 253-259.

Morrison, E., Gralewski, L., Campbell, N. & Penton-Voak, I.S. (2007) Facial movement varies by sex and is related to attractiveness. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28, 186-192.

Penton-Voak, I. S., Pound, N., Little, A. C., & Perrett, D.I. (2006) Personality judgments from natural and composite facial images: more evidence for a “kernel of truth” in social perception. Social Cognition 24(5): 490-524.

Penton-Voak, I.S., Jacobson, A. & Trivers, R. (2004) Populational differences in attractiveness judgements of male and female faces: Comparing British and Jamaican samples. Evolution and Human Behavior, 25: 355-370

Penton-Voak, I.S. & Chen, J.Y. (2004). High salivary testosterone is linked to masculine male facial appearance in humans. Evolution and Human Behavior 25: 229-241

Penton-Voak, I.S., Little, A.C., Jones, B.C., Burt, D.M. & Perrett, D.I. (2003). Measures of human female condition predict preferences for sexually dimorphic characteristics in men’s faces. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 117: 264–271.

Fink, B. & Penton-Voak, I.S. (2002). Evolutionary psychology of facial attractiveness. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11: 154-158.

Little, A.C., Jones, B.C., Penton-Voak, I.S., Burt D.M. & Perrett, D.I. (2002) Partnership status and the temporal context of relationships influence human female preferences for sexual dimorphism in male face shape. Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, 269: 1095-1100.

Perrett, D.I., Penton-Voak, I.S., Little, A.C., Tiddeman, B.P., Burt, D.M., Schmidt, N., Oxley, R., Kinloch, N. & Barret, L. (2002). Facial attractiveness judgements reflect learning of parental age characteristics. Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, 269: 873-880.

Penton-Voak, I.S., Jones, B.C., Little, A.C., Baker, S., Tiddeman, B., Burt, D.M., & Perrett, D.I. (2001) Symmetry, sexual dimorphism in facial proportions and male facial attractiveness. Proceedings of the Royal Society, B, 268: 1617-1625.

Penton-Voak, I.S. & Perrett, D.I. (2001). Male facial attractiveness: Perceived personality and shifting female preferences for male traits across the menstrual cycle. Advances in the Study of Behavior, 30: 219-259.

Little, A. C., Burt, D.M., Penton-Voak, I.S., & Perrett, D.I. (2001). Self-perceived attractiveness influences human female preferences for sexual dimorphism and symmetry in male faces. Proceedings of the Royal Society, B, 268: 39-44.

Penton-Voak, I.S. & Perrett, D.I. (2000). Female preference for male faces changes cyclically – further evidence. Evolution and Human Behavior 21: 39-48.

Penton-Voak, I.S., Perrett, D.I., Castles, D.L., Kobayashi, T., Burt, D.M., Murray, L.K. & Minamisawa, R. (1999). Female preference for male faces changes cyclically. Nature 399: 741-742.

Penton-Voak, I.S., Perrett, D.I. & Pierce, J. (1999). Computer graphic studies of the role of facial similarity in judgements of attractiveness. Current Psychology 18:104-117.

Perrett, D., Lee, K., Penton-Voak, I.S., Rowland, D., Yoshikawa, S., Burt, M., Henzi, P., Castles, D. & Akamatsu, S. (1998). Effects of sexual dimorphism on facial attractiveness. Nature 394: 884-887.

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