Washington, Oct 7 (ANI): Scientists say we can tell Labour MPs from their Conservative counterparts by simply looking at their facial characteristics.
Labour MPs have broader smiles, dimples and a rounder, softer face than their Conservative counterparts, according to research from Queen Mary, University of London and UCL (University College London).
The study involved a small group of people rating images of 90 male backbench MPs on whether they thought they were Labour or Conservative on a scale of one to six; one being definitely Labour and six definitely Conservative.
The participants were unable to correctly distinguish political affiliation from the images. Their perceptions, however, of whether an MP looked more Labour or Conservative, were then used to create computerised caricatures of the 'perfect' MP for each of the respective parties.
The new conceptualised faces were then independently assessed by almost 70 other people and the majority correctly identified the caricatured Conservative MP's face, which had a longer nose bridge and a darker area below his eyebrows.
"In 2010, studies in the US showed people could tell political allegiance simply from a politician's face; however our study shows that with current UK politicians this is not the case," said Professor Peter McOwan from Queen Mary, University of London.
"By applying state of the art image processing and statistical analysis to blend together the faces people thought looked Labour or Conservative, and computer enhancing the distinguishing features as a political cartoonist might, we were able to create 'typical' party faces people could more easily categorise.
"It would seem that in a political world where there is an increasing focus on a politician's looks, the public still seems to have a perception about what they expect; they still have a built-in face identikit for our main parties," he added. (ANI)
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