The faces of the elderly, happily-married people sometimes look like each other. Dr. Aiken studied a number of couples who had been married for at least twenty-five years. Each couple provided four photographs—one photo of each partner at the time of their marriage and another photo to remove any clues. The photos were then displayed in groups: a random(随意的)grouping of the persons at the time of their marriage and another random grouping of the same persons who took photographs later. Some judges were asked to pick out the partners. They failed totally with the first group. Their judgments were no better than chance. But with the photos taken twenty-five or more years after the marriage, the judges were quite successful at deciding who was married to whom. They were particularly successful with the most happily-married couples.
Dr. Aiken believes there are several reasons why couples grow alike. One reason has something to do with imitation. One person tends to copy or do the same as someone else without knowing it. He says human beings copy the expressions of the faces of their loved ones. Another possible reason, he says, is the common experience of the couples. There is a tendency for people who have the same life experience to change their faces in similar ways. For example, if a couple suffered a lot of sad experiences, their faces are likely to change in a similar way.