When people post pictures of chimpanzees to Instagram®, do they have a preference for choosing pictures which display the chimp’s right cheek – or the left cheek?
Dr Annukka Lindell, who is a senior lecturer in psychology at the Department of Psychology and Counselling, School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Australia, performed a study in 2019 which has taken steps to help resolve the question.
“Two thousand photographs were sourced from Instagram’s ‘Most Recent’ feed using the #chimpanzee, and coded for pose orientation (left, right) and portrait type (head and torso, full body). As anticipated, there were significantly more left cheek (57.2%) than right cheek images (42.8%), with the bias observed across both head and torso and full body portraits. Thus humans choose to depict chimpanzees just as we depict ourselves: offering the left cheek.”
See: Humans’ left cheek portrait bias extends to chimpanzees: Depictions of chimps on Instagram in the journal Laterality : Asymmetries of Brain, Behaviour, and Cognition, Latest Articles.
Note: The internet domain name ‘Chimpstagram.com’ has already been registered.
Research research by Martin Gardiner