Identification of acutely sick people: individual differences and social information use

Can humans discriminate between healthy and sick individuals, and if so by what cues? In order to study these important questions, in a recent study, Axelsson et al . let 62 untrained raters decide for 32 facial photos whether the person in the photo was healthy or sick [1]. Photos were taken of 16 healthy volunteers, injected once with a lipopolysaccharide injection ( Escherichia coli endotoxin) and once with a placebo injection (with a three...