Physiognomy or face reading is the practice of assessing a person's character or personality from their outer appearance—especially the face. Physiognomy as a practice meets the contemporary definition of pseudoscience and is regarded as such by academics because of its unsupported claims. Nevertheless, the subject is topic of serious scientific research. Statistical correlations does not inform anout possible causal dependence, so if observers judge the personality of (pictures of) symmetric faces differently than asymmetric ones, this might be due to cultural prejudice.