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THE COMPONENTS OF APPEARANCE OF A PERSON AS THE TOKENS OF HIS AGE

V. Labunskaya, T. Shkurko

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyze the components of appearance in the structure of perception of other people's age. The main method of study: original methodology В«Identification of personВ’s age using photovisualizationВ». Participants of study estimated the age of 20 people (10 men and 10 women aged from 18 to 58 years represented on the photos) and answered the question: В«What in this person allows you to make a conclusion about his or her age?В’. Subjects of perception were 60 respondents. As the result 3268 statements were obtained to which was applied a content analysis. While developing units of the content analysis, we relied on the ideas concerning the structure of the human appearance suggested by V.A. Labunskaya. Results: the study shows that the central place (70%) in the structure of perception of a person's age belongs to steady, mean steady and dynamic components of oneВ’s appearance, with the dominant position belonging to the steady components (42%). Among the steady components of appearance, the age perception is affected by (in descending order): face, figure, hands, neck and legs; among the mean steady components: features of clothes and shoes, hairstyle; makeup (women) / facial hair (men), accessorize; among the dynamic components: look, facial expressions, posture. Conclusion: this study allowed us to describe the В«contributionВ» of the various components of the appearance into the structure of age perception, to confirm the crucial role of the face of person in the process of identifying a person's age, to build a hierarchy of methods and means of rejuvenation in terms of how they affect the perception of person as the younger one.

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