Beauty in a Glance

Beauty can be perceived very quickly. Olson & Marshuetz (2005) showed that masked presentations of attractive faces (average rating: 7.44 with a range of 6.48-8.67) can be differentiated from unattractive faces (average rating: 2.45 with a range of 1.33-3.52). Faces were presented for 13ms (subjects were unable to accurately report whether a face had even been seen). The average rating of the masked and briefly presented attractive faces was 5.79 while that of the unattractive faces was 4.71 (p<.01).

Strengths

• Careful masking procedures
• Random presentation of stimuli
• Attractive/Unattractive faces matched for emotional expression

Cautions

• Subjects were able to differentiate between the attractive and unattractive faces, but, not as cleanly as under untimed rating conditions. With untimed ratings, the mean difference between the attractive and the unattractive groups was 5 points (on a 10-point scale); while the masked presentations resulted in a difference of only 1 point.

This data suggests that some evaluation of facial beauty happens rapidly (with a masked stimulus lasting only 13ms) and outside of awareness (subjects were unable to accurately indicate whether they had seen a face or not).

Wayne Hooke

Olson, I. R., & Marshuetz, C. (2005). Facial Attractiveness Is Appraised in a Glance. Emotion, 5(4), 498-502. doi: 10.1037/1528-3542.5.4.498

Does Size Matter?

According to Rebecca Sear and Frank Marlowe (2009), not to Hadza women. For the record, as used here, the word “size” means “height”. If you were thinking something more explicitly sexual (like penis size), it might matter. 40% of Hadza women report valuing looks in a mate (which in the just-linked survey includes a category labelled “good genitals”). But in regard to our specific question, Sear & Marlowe found that the proportion of female-taller marriages among the Hadza did not differ from chance expectations and that any reference to a man’s body size was mostly absent in Hadza women’s elaborations of what they looked for in a husband. Given that Hadza women tend to have more say in marriage decisions, this suggests that height is not viewed as particularly important to women in this society. This article has been attracting some attention – and the discussion has been mostly worthwhile and constructive. I think two things should be emphasized. The first is that this sort of data does not challenge a thoughtful and scientific approach to evolutionary psychology. Genes can influence behavior without reaching the comprehensive level of instinct. Counterexamples can inform, but do not end the discussion. The second is that this sort of data does present challenges both to some rather strong specific assertions about human male height in recent research (Nettle, 2005), (Pawlowski, et.al., 2000), (Mueller & Mazur, 2002) and to the sometimes found tendency to over interpret the evolutionary causes of specific data sets.

Strengths

• This study is part of a very thoughtful approach to studying evolutionary anthropology.
• The Hadza continue to live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

Cautions

• It is possible that the Hadza are atypical in their approach to male height – since they are closely related to pygmy populations:with males averaging about 160 cm in height (5′3″), with less variation in height than in most other populations.

Wayne Hooke

Image courtesy of Idobi/Wikipedia Commons (2007)

 

Sear, R., & Marlowe, F. (2009). How universal are human mate choices? Size does not matter when Hadza foragers are choosing a mate Biology Letters, 5 (5), 606-609 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0342

Sans Fards

French Elle’s April 2009 edition highlighted make-up free beauty. Given the social effects of the “perfectly” beautiful images in contemporary media, Elle’s edition is noteworthy. Three covers were used – the crop below right is of the one featuring Monica Bellucci. The photo above right is from Wikipedia Commons – showing Ms. Bellucci in make-up. So, what’s different? To my eye, the most obvious effects of makeup are: greater contrast between the eyes/lips and the surrounding skin; a more even skin tone, and more color in the cheeks. Increasing contrast between the eyes/lips and the surrounding skin enhances a human sex difference: having the effect of hyper-feminizing women (Russell, in press). Rather than lightening the skin, the usual technique is to darken the eyes and lips. Evening the skin tone makes faces appear more attractive, youthful, and healthy (Fink, et.al., 2006). Increasing cheek redness likely makes faces – especially women’s faces – appear healthier (Stephen, et.al., 2009).

I have discussed Russell’s work on sex differences in facial contrast in a recent blog entry – so I will not review that here. In a novel approach, Fink and colleagues converted skin tone information from digital photographs of actual faces into 3D illustrations that kept facial structure, hair color and style, and eye color constant (see below). Raters then evaluated the 3D creations for youthfulness, age, health, and attractiveness. The correlation between the estimated age of the 3D figures and the actual age of the photographed women was good (r=.708, p<.01). The estimated age range for the 3D figures appears to be 20-31; while the actual age range of the photographed women was 11-76 (mean=37.39, S.D.=17.35). This suggests that skin coloration alone contributed about 12 years to age estimates in this study and that other cues to aging may have a larger individual impact. Estimated age correlated with attractiveness (r=-.557, p<.01), healthy appearance (r=-.543, p<.01), and youthfulness (r=-.871, p<.01).

I am enthusiastic about the use of digital imaging in the study of beauty. But, to my eye, there is something just a little off with these images. My reaction leads me to one caution: as the use of computer generated stimuli become more common in beauty research, the risk of getting stuck in the uncanny valley becomes greater. While still mostly theoretical (but a quick search of Science Direct suggests that more empirical data is forthcoming), the notion of the uncanny valley is that as robots and 3D animations become almost human-like, they will produce an “uncanny” negative reaction – one that could interfere with beauty research.

Some carefully controlled research from Stephen and colleagues suggests a reason for the typical use of rouge in women’s cosmetic applications: to appear healthy. The research under discussion does not directly address reddened cheeks, but did find a tendency for increased levels of the color “oxygenated blood-red” in faces that appeared healthy to evaluators. All-in-all, recent research suggests that artfully applied makeup should increase ratings/evaluations of femininity, youthfulness, health, and attractiveness.

Wayne Hooke

FINK, B., GRAMMER, K., & MATTS, P. (2006). Visible skin color distribution plays a role in the perception of age, attractiveness, and health in female faces☆ Evolution and Human Behavior, 27 (6), 433-442 DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2006.08.007

Stephen, I. D., Coetzee, V., Law Smith, M., & Perrett, D. I. (2009). Skin Blood Perfusion and Oxygenation Colour Affect Perceived Human Health. PLoS ONE, 4(4), e5083. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005083

Russell, R. (in press). A sex difference in facial pigmentation and its exaggerationby cosmetics. Perception.

Asymmetry in Supermodels

A common goal in most oculoplastic procedures is to increase symmetry. In an effort to establish baseline measures in attractive subjects, Ing et.al. (2006) measured ocular asymmetries in male and female models’ photos in fashion magazine advertisements (e.g., Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Vogue, Gentleman’s Quarterly, etc.). They found significant asymmetries in:

• horizontal fissure width (1)
• upper central lid fold (5)
• upper temporal lid fold (7)
• central eyebrow height (9)
• temporal eyebrow height (11)
• medial canthal to midline distance
• pupil to midline distance
• orbital distopia (asymmetrically displaced eyes)

While I applaud the effort to establish realistic expectations of beauty, I do not believe that the methods used in this study can reach valid conclusions regarding each of the numbered measures in the bulleted list above. Each of these measures can vary based on facial expression (if you like, you can demonstrate this point to yourself in front of a mirror). Even in cases where fashion models’ expressions appear neutral in a magazine ad, we cannot assume that subtle asymmetries are not the result of subtle expressions – as opposed to assuming they result from structural asymmetries.

That being said, attractive models are not always perfectly symmetrical. A cursory visual inspection of beauty shots (essentially, close-ups of faces intended to look beautiful) will reveal asymmetries in beautiful models that are visible to the naked eye.

Wayne Hooke

Ing E, Safarpour A, Ing T, & Ing S (2006). Ocular adnexal asymmetry in models: a magazine photograph analysis. Canadian journal of ophthalmology. Journal canadien d’ophtalmologie, 41 (2), 175-82 PMID: 16767204

Androgyny Capitulates to Cosmetology

Richard Russell of Harvard University has won third prize in the 2009 Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest with his illusion of sex submission. The faces to the right both were created by averaging male and female faces to create an androgynous substrate that was then modified to exhibit the typical contrast differences found between female and male faces (below right). While the face is the same in both images, people typically see the face on the left as a woman’s and the face on the right as a man’s. This is because the underlying identical, androgynous face has been tonally modified to exhibit typical sex differences.

The image to the right shows these typical tonal differences. The leftmost image to the right (the predominantly white one) shows that areas around the eyes and lips are typically darker in women than men, and that skin tone is typically lighter. The rightmost image shows that the typical male- relative to the typical female – has lighter areas in the eyes/lips and darker skin.

Russell asserts two interesting things:

• these characteristic tonal differences influence our perception of sex, and
• the typical, recommended use of cosmetics by women enhances female characteristics.

I have not been able to access the full-text of Russell’s (2009) preprint article and it appears that the link to it at his web page has been severed. The references/links below provide some additional detail.

Wayne Hooke

Russell, R. (in press). A sex difference in facial pigmentation and its exaggerationby cosmetics. Perception.

Why Cosmetics Work: More Depth To Facial Differences Between Men And Women Than Presumed. (n.d.). . Retrieved October 25, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091020153100.htm.

Richard Russell – Research. (n.d.). . Retrieved October 25, 2009, from http://public.gettysburg.edu/~rrussell/research.html.

Tonal graphic from:

Frost, P. (2009, October 1). Facial color and sex recognition. Evo and Proud. Retrieved October 25, 2009, fromhttp://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2009/10/facial-skin-color-and-sex-recognition.html.

The Beauty Penalty

It has been generally concluded that beautiful people earn more money than others. This conclusion is called into question in a thoughtful analysis of some new and previously used data sets (Doran & Hersch, 2009). After adding a number of corrections, robustness checks, and additional controls to the reanalyzed data, these researchers conclude that real-world evidence for the beauty premium is not robust and “is either non-existent or entirely mediated through other variables” (p. 16). This result is, for me, perplexing. For example, Markus & Mobius (2006), using an analog study, found that a one standard deviation increase in beauty results in a 12.1% increase in wages. Leigh & Borland (2007), using data from the Australian National Social Science Survey (1984), found that the same one standard deviation increase in beauty improves the probability of employment by 4% in men and 5% in women. It seems that beauty gives – at least – an initial wage-earning advantage. Further, there is evidence that beautiful people grow-up in social environments that foster marketable skills (e.g., increased confidence, verbal skills [Markus & Mobius, 2006], and productivity [Cipriani & Zago, 2005]). So, what’s going on?

Wilson & Eckel (2006) and Andreoni & Petrie (2008) conducted separate analog studies that shed light on the intra- and interpersonal dynamics behind what seems to be a disappearing beauty premium. Their data suggests:

• we have higher expectations of the beautiful;
• the beautiful are more suspicious of others’ expectations;
• commonly, the beautiful do not meet others’ expectations;
• when expectations are not met, the beautiful appear more stuck-up or selfish to others and as a result are punished more than are the non-beautiful.

The implication may be that the beauty premium can be capitalized-on in those relationships where others’ increased expectations of the beautiful are met. When others’ increased expectations are not met, the beauty penalty kicks-in. Beauty, it seems, is a two-edged sword.

Wayne Hooke

Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Andreoni, J., & Petrie, R. (2008). Beauty, gender and stereotypes: Evidence from laboratory experiments. Journal of Economic Psychology, 29(1), 73-93. doi: 10.1016/j.joep.2007.07.008.

Cipriani, G. P., & Zago, A. (2005). Productivity or Discrimination? Beauty and the Exams. Università Degli Studi Di Verona, Dipartimento Di Scienze Economiche, Working Paper Series, 18.

Doran, K., & Hersch, J. (n.d.). The Beauty Premium is Not Robust. Retrieved October 7, 2009, from http://www.nd.edu/~kdoran/BeautyNotRobust.pdf

Markus M. Mobius, & Tanya S. Rosenblat. (2006). Why Beauty Matters. American Economic Review, American Economic Review, 96(1), 222-235. Retrieved October 7, 2009, from http://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v96y2006i1p222-235.html.

Wilson, R., & Eckel, C. (2006). Judging a Book by its Cover: Beauty and Expectations in the Trust Game Political Research Quarterly, 59 (2), 189-202 DOI: 10.1177/106591290605900202

Beauty is “more” in the eye of the beholder…..

Joshua Foster (2008) conducted a study that expands on the research that explores the role of visual and olfactory cues in attractiveness ratings. Previous studies – which found that olfactory cues may be as influential or more influential in evaluating attractiveness – have relied on retrospective reports from participants. Foster’s design utilized real-time, in-the-moment attractiveness ratings made by women (n=44/mean age=24) of young men’s (n=21/mean age=23) worn t-shirt odors and facial photographs. Foster compared the ratings of normally cycling (labelled “fertile”) and atypically cycling women (i.e., pregnant/taking hormonal contraceptives – labelled ‘infertile’). Separate ratings were made on pleasantness, sexiness, and attractiveness – which all loaded onto a single component – so the ratings were averaged in the regression calculations.

Both the visual cues in the facial photographs and the olfactory cues in the worn t-shirts contributed to overall attractiveness ratings. Visual cues, however, were significantly more important in determining attractiveness ratings than were olfactory cues. There was a trend in the data suggesting that olfactory cues played a larger role in normal cycling women’s ratings, though, this study lacked the power to unequivocally capture this possible phenomenon.

Strengths

• Utilized a real-time, rather than retrospective methodology
• Nice checks for odor confounds

Cautions

• Atypical use of the terms fertile/infertile – reference seems to be to normal cycling or pregnant/using hormonal contraceptives
• Visual stimuli limited to facial attractiveness

Wayne Hooke

Photo courtesy of Snorky/Wikipedia Commons

Foster, J. (2008). Beauty Is Mostly in the Eye of the Beholder: Olfactory Versus Visual Cues of Attractiveness The Journal of Social Psychology, 148 (6), 765-774 DOI: 10.3200/SOCP.148.6.765-774