Your brain works to see faces in cars, and automakers want to exploit your taste for the mean machine:
If a Toyota Prius just looks too friendly for your tastes, you’re not alone. People readily see faces and traits in cars, and a new study suggests that they prefer cars to appear dominant, masculine and angry.
The finding rests on the propensity we have to actually see faces or human characteristics in everything from cars to clouds, a phenomenon called pareidolia. But now researchers hope to better understand what goes on in the brain when people see faces in objects versus humans faces, as well as help automakers design more appealing cars.
Apparently people prefer the BMW's hawk-like facial expression. Of course, the meanest car is one without eyes:
