We’ve known that our brains form first impressions of both people and things very, very quickly.
A 2006 study showed that a mere 50 milliseconds were enough to form an opinion about a website. More recently, researchers have discovered that our brains form an impression of faces even when the exposure time is so short we’re not consciously aware we saw them.
The scientists found that our amygdala, an area of the brain associated with emotion and decision-making, makes a judgment about the trustworthiness of a face after just 33 milliseconds of exposure. The subjects didn’t recall seeing faces, but their amygdalas reacted differently depending on the face details.
