When items are presented in a sequence, the evaluation of these items is biased by the previous item and the judgement of the previous item. These biases are shown when people sequentially judge the attractiveness of faces. Perceptual bias occurs when judgements are influenced by the previous face, and response bias occurs when judgements are influenced by the previous response. The two effects these biases can manifest as are assimilation (shift towards a previous item or decision) and contrast (shift away from a previous item or decision). Previous research that has investigated sequential biases in judgements of facial attractiveness has shown contradictory findings. This research attempted to provide some clarity to these mixed results by designing two separate tasks: one to measure perceptual bias alone and one to measure response bias alone. The data from each task were analysed separately using linear mixed-effects models. The results demonstrate a perceptual bias in which attractiveness ratings to the current face shifted away from the attractiveness value of the previous face. A response bias was not found in this study; there was no influence of the previous response on the current judgement. These findings demonstrate that perceptual bias takes the form of a contrast effect in judgements of facial attractiveness. The failure to find a response bias suggests that this bias cannot simply be accounted for by numerical priming or anchoring to the previous response.
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