Thanks to co-authors @mauromanassi.bsky.social, Clare Sutherland, Linda Jeffery, Sarah Maisey, to Visual Cognition journal for publishing us, and to the University of Aberdeen! 8/8

Taken together, our findings confirm that (1) temporal context shapes trustworthiness impressions, by showing that visual adaptation affects trust judgements, and that (2) past emotional expressions influence following impressions of trustworthiness and dominance. 7/8

Our results support the emotion overgeneralization hypothesis (suggesting that we overgeneralise subtle emotional cues in neutral faces when judging others' traits), and help understanding why we form such impressions, despite little evidence they reflect others’ true traits. 6/8

Importantly, using anti-expressions (stimuli designed to bias neutral faces toward the original expression and minimise semantic adaptation), suggest a common perceptual mechanism in the visual representation of emotional expressions and facial trait evaluations. 5/8

Moreover, we found that trustworthiness impressions can be shaped by other facial characteristics: adaptation to different facial expressions (happy/angry/fear) significantly influenced subsequent trust and dominance evaluations. 4/8

We found that prolonged exposure to (un)trustworthy faces biases the impression of subsequent faces away from the past (so new faces look more (un)trustworthy). Building on previous evidence, this result confirms a robust face aftereffect for trustworthiness impressions.
3/8

Although most research has considered facial trust impressions to be stable over time, face perception in general is dynamically influenced by the temporal context history, as evidenced by visual adaptation. 2/8