TY - JOUR

T1 - The Self in the Mind’s Eye: Revealing how we truly see ourselves through reverse correlation

AU - Maister, Lara

AU - De Beukelaer, Sophie

AU - Longo, Matthew

AU - Tsakiris, Manos

PY - 2021/12/1

Y1 - 2021/12/1

N2 - Is there a way to visually depict, for all to see, how people "see" themselves with their minds’ eyes? And if so, what can these mental images tell us about ourselves? We use a computational reverse-correlation technique to explore individuals’ mental ‘self-portraits’, of their faces and body shapes, in an unbiased, data-driven way (total N = 116). Self-portraits were similar to individuals’ real faces, but importantly, also contained ‘clues’ to each person’s self-reported personality traits, which were reliably detected by external observers. Furthermore, people with higher social self-esteem produced more true-to-life self-portraits. Unlike face-portraits, body-portraits had negligible relationships with individuals’ actual body shape, but as with faces, they were influenced by people’s beliefs and emotions. We show how psychological beliefs and attitudes about oneself bias the perceptual representation of one’s appearance, and provide a unique window into the internal mental self-representation, with important implications for mental health and visual culture.

AB - Is there a way to visually depict, for all to see, how people "see" themselves with their minds’ eyes? And if so, what can these mental images tell us about ourselves? We use a computational reverse-correlation technique to explore individuals’ mental ‘self-portraits’, of their faces and body shapes, in an unbiased, data-driven way (total N = 116). Self-portraits were similar to individuals’ real faces, but importantly, also contained ‘clues’ to each person’s self-reported personality traits, which were reliably detected by external observers. Furthermore, people with higher social self-esteem produced more true-to-life self-portraits. Unlike face-portraits, body-portraits had negligible relationships with individuals’ actual body shape, but as with faces, they were influenced by people’s beliefs and emotions. We show how psychological beliefs and attitudes about oneself bias the perceptual representation of one’s appearance, and provide a unique window into the internal mental self-representation, with important implications for mental health and visual culture.

KW - self-representation

KW - body

KW - appearance

KW - reverse correlation

KW - personality

KW - self-face

KW - open data

U2 - 10.1177%2F09567976211018618

DO - 10.1177%2F09567976211018618

M3 - Article

VL - 32

SP - 1965

EP - 1978

JO - Psychological Science

JF - Psychological Science

SN - 0956-7976

IS - 12

ER -