Scientists: Your car says a lot about your personality

Is your car dominant or submissive, or perhaps male or female?

Research by a Florida State University scientist shows that people see human or animal facial features in a car's design that gives it a personality.

The butterfly decals on the front bumper, flowers in the dashboard vase and lime-green paint job only confirmed Dennis Slice's perception of a Volkswagen Beetle parked in a lot at Florida State University.

Slice is a shape analysis researcher.

He says the narrow body, wide-eyed circular headlights, tall windshield and curve of the bug's hood match the facial features of a smiling woman or child. He calls it a "classic cute car - not dominant, not aggressive."

Slice and fellow researchers at Austria's Vienna University, are exploring the widely held belief that cars project personalities because they look like human faces when viewed head-on.

"What we can do with that information then is we can design software perhaps that will start off with some basic model car then allow a designer to tweak it and add, add some more aggression perhaps, temper it with some femininity and us it as a real design tool to explore different aspects of automotive design space," said Slice.

The researchers hope their work one day may help designers determine what parts of a car, such as the headlights, grill or windshield, they can change - and how - to project traits that make cars more appealing to different kinds of customers.

Slice says future research may look at whether cars' personalities relate to drivers' habits and interactions.

Car owner Gwen Oliver says her car makes her look aggressive.

"Yes, it does, it really does. Because I'm aggressive, I'm straight forward and I'm outgoing. And I believe in getting the job done, I don't believe in messing around, this is your job so you need to do your job ."

Slice says the idea of seeing faces in inanimate objects is part of a survival instinct that goes back to prehistoric times. Facial features offering clues about a person's sex, age, emotions and intentions helped early humans detect potential threats.

Slice says those identifications are so important that people also tend to see faces even where they don't exist.