Political Memes

On average, we respond solely to voice pitch, tonality, body language and facial expressions, like a still developing toddler…

You wouldn’t believe how close you are.

[…Researches] recruited 684 Swiss students and asked them to rate pairs of politicians who had run against each other in the 2002 French parliamentary elections. Based solely on black-and-white photos of the candidates, they had to say who was more competent and by what degree. There were 57 pairs in all, and each volunteer rated just one.

They found that the students’ competence judgments predicted the actual winners of the run-offs with a 72% accuracy.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/voters-use-child-like-judgments-when-judging-political-candidates

[A] group of children would be able to predict the outcome of elections in another country, based only on photos of the candidates […] is exactly what a recent study in the journal Science has found.

Swiss children as young as five years can predict which candidates are more likely to win French parliamentary elections.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-look-of-a-winner/

The children were just as good at predicting election results as the grown-ups were;

(first article again)