Mirror lies: Why you don't look the way you think

from ScienceDump.com

Settled down from holiday partying, you sometimes find yourself trawling photos you were tagged in on Facebook wondering, "is that really what I look like?" And not necessarily in a good way. WIRED has got the story.

It turns out that while we have a pretty good idea of what our face looks like because we know our reflection, this means we're used to a flipped image of ourselves.

"This matters because of an effect called “mere-exposure.” Formulated in 1968 by a psychologist named Robert Zajonc, it basically says that people react more favorably to things they seen more often. Zajonc tested this with everything from shapes, to facial expressions, even nonsense words. Since we see ourselves most frequently in the mirror, this is our preferred self-image. According to the mere-exposure effect, when your slight facial asymmetries are left unflipped by the camera, you see an unappealing, alien version of yourself"

I'm wondering though, is it really that simple? To find out, I'll be sure to pre-flip any self-portraits I find before looking at them, and maybe self-confidence will once again beam radiantly from my countenance. Or I'll just have to invent a non-mirroring mirror. If that makes sense.

SOURCE: http://www.wired.com/2015/01/whats-up-with-pictures-yourself/