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Newborn Infants' Preference for Attractive Faces: The Role of Internal and External Facial Features
Abstract
Several previous experiments have found that newborn and young infants will spend more time looking at attractive faces when these are shown paired with faces judged by adults to be unattractive. Two experimental conditions are described with the aim of finding whether the “attractiveness effect” results from attention to internal or external facial features, or both. Pairs of attractive and less attractive faces (as judged by adults) were shown to newborn infants (mean age 2 days, 9 hours), where each pair had either identical internal features (and different external features) or identical external features (and different internal features). In the latter, but not the former, condition the infants looked longer at the attractive faces. These findings are clear evidence that newborn infants use information about internal facial features in making preferences based on attractiveness. It is suggested that when newborn (and older) infants are presented with facial stimuli, whether dynamic or static, they are able to attend both to internal and external facial features.
... 5 In 2000, two other studies were carried out to investigate the specific aspect of a face that contributes to these preferences. Slater, Bremner, Johnson, Sherwood, Hayes and Brown (2000) examined the role of inner and outer features of the attractive and unattractive faces. ...
... Results from this study indicate that infants use internal features of a face in making preference of attractiveness of a face. Slater, Bremner, Johnson, Sherwood, Hayes and Brown (2000) study. AA= Attractive exterior with attractive interior; AU = Attractive exterior with unattractive interior; UU = Unattractive exterior with unattractive interior; UA = Unattractive exterior with attractive interior. ...
... Several preferences have also been found to be disrupted when the face stimuli are inverted in children younger than 10-years old. For example, Slater et al. (2000) found that newborn's preference for attractive faces was eliminated when the face was presented inverted. Similarly, Quinn et al. (2002) found that 3-month-old infants' preference for female faces was abolished when these faces were displayed in an inverted orientation. ...
The ability to recognize and categorise different faces proficiently has social advantages. This thesis addresses two questions: 1) how differential experience affects the development of face processing, specifically in two areas: recognition and categorising of faces and 2) how differential experience affects the way children use phenotype cues in detecting kinship relation. Four studies were conducted: The effect of differential experience (EDE) in infants face recognition (Study 1); The EDE in children and adult face recognition (Study 2); The EDE on children categorisation of faces (Study 3) and the EDE on pre-schoolers detection of kinship relations among stranger faces (Study 4)In study 1, face recognition was compared between infants from a multiracial population (Malaysia) and infants from a monoracial population (UK). We investigated face recognition of 4 and 9 months old Chinese infants from Malaysia using female and male faces that are of infants own-race (Chinese), experienced other-race (Malay) and less experienced other-race (Caucasian White). 4-month-olds recognized Chinese female faces, while 9-month-olds recognized Chinese and Malaysian female faces. Infants did not recognize male faces. British infants, on the other hand, recognized the faces of women and men of their own type. It appears that for infants born and raised in a multiracial environment, there is a developmental shift from a female based own-race recognition advantage to a female based own and experienced other-race advantage that may relate to infants’ social and caregiving experiences.In study 2, the other race effect was investigated in Malaysian adults and children. In adults, with increasing exposure to multi-races over the years, Malaysian adults develop equal ability to recognise own and frequently exposed other-race faces. In children, development of own-race recognition advantage to high-frequency other-race recognition advantage begins to change in childhood. While it appears that certain exposure to other-race faces affects the ORE, the relationship between exposure and face recognition is inconsistent within the Malaysian children tested indicating the ORE is still malleable during childhood.In study 3, 7 and 9-year-old Malaysian children and adult’s categorization of (a) own-race, (b) high-frequency other-race and (c) low-frequency other-race faces were investigated. Whereas the other-race categorization advantage was found in the accuracy data of Malay adults, other aspects of performance were supportive of either the social categorization or perceptual expertise accounts and were dependent on the race (Malay vs. Chinese) or age (child vs. adult) of the participants. Of particular significance is the finding that Malaysian Chinese children and adults categorized own-race Chinese faces more rapidly than high-frequency other-race Malay faces. Thus the other-race categorization advantage seems to be more an advantage for racial categories of lesser experience regardless of whether these face categories are own-race or other-race.In study 4, we examined whether the ability to detect kinship in unrelated faces in preschool children was influenced by their exposure to different race faces. We compared pre-schoolers born and raised in a multiracial environment (Malaysia) and those raised in a monoracial environment (France). The multiracial environment did give an advantage in detection of kinship performance, pre-schoolers from mixed-race families were better in the kinship-matching task performance. The results suggest that perhaps a direct experience with mixed race families is a key for children to understand biological inheritance.Taken together, the results provide insights on the EDE in face recognition, categorisation and kinship detection.
... Même parmi les visages non familiers, on peut trouver des préférences spontanées chez le nouveau-né. C'est d'ailleurs peut-être l'un des effets les plus surprenants que l'on puisse observer chez les nouveau-nés : ceux-ci regardent plus longtemps des visages jugés attractifs par des adultes par rapport à des visages jugés comme non-attractifs (Slater, Quinn, Hayes, & Brown, 2000;Slater, Bremner, et al., 2000). De plus, cet effet disparait lorsque les visages sont inversés (Slater, Quinn, et al., 2000), et semble basé sur les contours internes du visage (Slater, Bremner, et al., 2000). ...
... C'est d'ailleurs peut-être l'un des effets les plus surprenants que l'on puisse observer chez les nouveau-nés : ceux-ci regardent plus longtemps des visages jugés attractifs par des adultes par rapport à des visages jugés comme non-attractifs (Slater, Quinn, Hayes, & Brown, 2000;Slater, Bremner, et al., 2000). De plus, cet effet disparait lorsque les visages sont inversés (Slater, Quinn, et al., 2000), et semble basé sur les contours internes du visage (Slater, Bremner, et al., 2000). Ici, on pourrait difficilement arguer d'une influence culturelle de l'appréciation esthétique des visages, et si la beauté est « dans l'oeil de celui qui l'observe » elle n'est certainement pas dans la culture du nouveau-né. ...
... Initialement mis en évidence chez l'adulte, il a été montré que le moyennage de traits de différents visages produisait un visage « moyen » plus attractif que les visages qui ont servi à sa construction (Langlois & Roggman, 1990) (Slater, Quinn, et al., 2000;Slater, Bremner, et al., 2000) ont en moyenne deux ou trois jours de vie, on peut raisonnablement penser qu'ils ont perçu quelques visages en plus des stimuli présentés durant les études. De plus, Hoss et Langlois (2003) reportent une étude (non publiée toutefois) réalisée avec des nouveau-nés âgés en moyenne de 15 min -donc ayant une expérience avec les visages extrêmement limitée, sinon nulle -dans laquelle la préférence n'a pas pu être trouvée. ...
Le propos de ce travail de thèse est d’examiner le développement de la formation de catégories de visages, par l’étude des préférences visuelles des nourrissons dans la première année de vie. Nous avons cherché à préciser les mécanismes de formation des préférences visuelles en les intégrant dans le cadre théorique développé par Valentine (1991), le face-space. Nous avons proposé de lier ces préférences à la manière dont l’expérience perceptive des nourrissons avec différentes catégories de visages va structurer l’espace de représentation des visages. De manière générale, nous avons postulé que les nourrissons présenteront des préférences pour les visages proches de la tendance centrale (i.e., prototype) du face-space. Nous avons mis en évidence une tendance des nourrissons de 0 à 6 mois à présenter un biais pour des visages d’adultes par rapport à des visages de nourrissons (Etudes 1 et 2), les premiers correspondant à une catégorie de visages prépondérante de l’environnement des nourrissons, là où les seconds correspondent à une catégorie de visages peu rencontrée. Ce biais pour la familiarité s’est avéré disparaitre à 9 et 12 mois (Etude 3). Ces préférences liées à la familiarité pourraient être liées à une forme de fausse reconnaissance du visage des proches des nourrissons, issue de la surreprésentation de ces visages dans le quotidien des nourrissons. Ce pattern de préférences n’a en revanche pas été retrouvé lorsque des nourrissons de 3 à 12 mois ont été confrontés à des visages d’enfants ou de nourrissons (Etudes 4 et 5), les résultats montrant plutôt une préférence pour les visages les moins familiers, relativement à l’expérience des nourrissons. Nous avons ensuite étudié les capacités de catégorisation de nourrissons de 9 et 12 mois pour des visages de différentes catégories d’âges, i.e., adulte, enfant, nourrisson (Etude 6). Les nourrissons de 12 mois ont formé des catégories discrètes des visages d’adulte et de nourrissons d’une part, et d’enfants et de nourrissons d’autre part. Les nourrissons de 9 mois en revanche ont montré un pattern plus asymétrique en ce qu’ils ont formé une représentation des visages d’enfants excluant un nouveau visage de nourrisson, et une représentation des visages de nourrissons incluant un nouveau visage d’enfant. Les nourrissons ayant tous une expérience de la crèche, donc des visages de nourrissons, cette asymétrie pourrait être liée à une influence de la connaissance de cette catégorie de visage. Dans une dernière étude (Etude 7) nous avons cherché à montrer plus directement le lien entre préférences visuelles et proximité par rapport au prototype, chez des nourrissons humains de 12 mois et des nourrissons macaques de 3 mois (Macaca mulatta). La mise en évidence de préférences liées à la distance par rapport au prototype chez ces deux populations suggère la présence d’un mécanisme commun aux deux espèces conduisant à la formation de préférences visuelles pour les visages.
... Dowodzi to, że zarówno psychiczny wzorzec twarzy jak i zainteresowanie twarzami są u człowieka wrodzone. Wrodzone są też prawdopodobnie przynajmniej niektóre kryteria oceny AtrTw, gdyż 2-3-dniowe noworodki dłużej patrzą na te zdjęcia twarzy, które przez dorosłych są uważane za atrakcyjne (SLATER et al. 1998(SLATER et al. , 2000a(SLATER et al. , 2000b. Dwudniowe noworodki więcej też patrzą na twarze z otwartymi oczami niż zamkniętymi (BATKI et al. 2000). ...
... uśmiech), bo badania prowadzono na zdjęciach twarzy z neutralnym wyrazem. SLATER et al. (2000a) ustalili, że noworodki kierują się cechami wewnętrznymi twarzy (oczy, nos, usta), a nie zewnętrznymi (włosy, uszy, obrys twarzy). GELDART et al. (1999a) stwierdzili, że 5-miesięczne niemowlęta wolą duże niż małe oczy (niestety, w eksperymencie tym nie badano reakcji na oczy o przeciętnym rozmiarze). ...
... atrakcyjność fizyczna ceniona jest wyżej w populacjach o większym zapasożyceniu (GANGESTAD i BUSS 1993), (5) zmiany preferencji w czasie, np. w ciężkich czasach silniejsza jest preferencja dla oznak dojrzałości na twarzy (PETTIJOHN i TESSER 1999, PETTIJOHN i JUNGEBERG 2004, (6) wrodzony charakter preferencji: preferencja dla atrakcyjnych twarzy jest już u 2-3-dniowych noworodków (SLATER et al. 1998(SLATER et al. , 2000a(SLATER et al. , 2000b. Z drugiej strony, założenie o adaptacyjnym charakterze preferencji dla twarzy o przeciętnych proporcjach jest przykładem tezy raczej słabo popartej empirycznie. ...
A newer version of the Polish text which has been published (in somewhat shortened form) as two English-language papers: "Facial attractiveness: General patterns of facial preferences" and "Facial attractiveness: Variation, adaptiveness and consequences of facial preferences".
... Dowodzi to, że zarówno psychiczny wzorzec twarzy jak i zainteresowanie twarzami są u człowieka wrodzone. Wrodzone są też prawdopodobnie przynajmniej niektóre kryteria oceny AtrTw, gdyż 2-3-dniowe noworodki dłużej patrzą na te zdjęcia twarzy, które przez dorosłych są uważane za atrakcyjne (SLATER et al. 1998(SLATER et al. , 2000a(SLATER et al. , 2000b Takie selektywne patrzenie na atrakcyjne twarze znaleziono też niemowląt w różnym wieku (LANGLOIS et al. 1987, VAN DUUREN et al. 2003. Roczne niemowlęta wykazują większą ochotę do zabawy z osobą z maską z atrakcyjną twarzą oraz z lalką o ładniejszej twarzy ). ...
... uśmiech), bo badania prowadzono na zdjęciach twarzy z neutralnym wyrazem. SLATER et al. (2000a) ustalili, że noworodki kierują się cechami wewnętrznymi twarzy (oczy, nos, usta), a nie zewnętrznymi (włosy, uszy, obrys twarzy). GELDART et al. (1999a) znaleźli, że 5-miesięczne niemowlęta wolą duże niż małe oczy (niestety, w eksperymencie tym nie badano reakcji na oczy o przeciętnym rozmiarze). ...
... atrakcyjność fizyczna ceniona jest wyżej w populacjach o większym zapasożyceniu (GANGESTAD i BUSS 1993), (5) zmiany preferencji w czasie, np. w ciężkich czasach silniejsza jest preferencja dla oznak dojrzałości na twarzy (PETTIJOHN i TESSER 1999, PETTIJOHN i JUNGEBERG 2004, (6) wrodzony charakter preferencji: preferencja dla atrakcyjnych twarzy jest już u 2-3-dniowych noworodków (SLATER et al. 1998(SLATER et al. , 2000a(SLATER et al. , 2000b. znaczenie adaptacyjnie (por. ...
Abstrakt: Atrakcyjność twarzy była przedmiotem rozważań już w starożytności, ale naukowe badania nad nią pochodzą głównie z ostatniego ćwierćwiecza. Badania te dowiodły, że istnieje szereg, często mierzalnych, własności twarzy, które wpływają atrakcyjności twarzy. Przeciętność proporcji oraz symetria twarzy są preferowane przypuszczalnie dlatego, że sygnalizują zdrowie genetyczne i wysoką tzw. stabilność rozwojową. Mężczyźni preferują silnie sfeminizowane twarze kobiet, ponieważ oznaczają one wysoki stosunek poziomu estrogenu do testosteronu, a zatem sprawność reprodukcyjną kobiety. Natomiast kobiety preferują umiarkowany stopień maskulinizacji twarzy mężczyzn, ponieważ znaczna maskulinizacja sygnalizuje wysoki poziom testosteronu, a zatem słabo wykształcone pro-rodzinne cechy osobowości. Z podobnych przyczyn mężczyźni preferują brak owłosienia twarzy kobiet, a kobiece preferencje dla zarostu twarzy mężczyzn są niejednolite. Czysta (tzn. pozbawiona brodawek itp.) skóra twarzy jest atrakcyjna u obu płci. Ponadto mężczyźni preferują u kobiet skórę jasną i gładką (tzn. bez zmarszczek). Korzystny wpływ na atrakcyjność twarzy ma też pozytywny wyraz twarzy. Wiele z wyżej wymienionych cech (przede wszystkim stan skóry i proporcje twarzy) wpływa na postrzegany wiek, a ten z kolei wpływa na atrakcyjność twarzy. Szczególnie mężczyźni silnie preferują młodo wyglądające twarze kobiet. Badania pokazują, że preferencje względem twarzy w dużej mierze są kryteriami rozpoznawania wartościowych, z reprodukcyjnego punktu widzenia, partnerów. Preferencje te mają zatem charakter adaptacji, choć w niektórych przypadkach istotną rolę mogą także odgrywać nie-adaptacyjne mechanizmy związane z ogólnymi sposobami funkcjonowania mózgu. W niniejszej pracy dużo miejsca poświęcono wewnątrz-i międzypopulacyjnej zmienności preferencji, związkowi pomiędzy atrakcyjnością twarzy a wartością partnerską, biologicznym i społecznym konsekwencjom atrakcyjności oraz wiarygodności adaptacyjnego rozumienia preferencji względem twarzy. Wyniki badań skłaniają do następujących wniosków: (1) Istnieje wiele czynników przyczyniających się do międzyosobniczej zmienności postrzegania atrakcyjności twarzy, np. wiek, płeć, jakość biologiczna, stan fizjologiczny, osobowość i sytuacja życiowa osoby oceniającej twarze, a także poprzednio oglądane twarze, podobieństwo pomiędzy ocenianą twarzą a twarzą sędziego, oraz znajomość właściciela twarzy i wiedza o nim. (2) Międzypopulacyjne podobieństwo w postrzeganiu atrakcyjności twarzy jest znaczne i ma podłoże zarówno biologiczne jak i kulturowe. (3) Osoby o atrakcyjnych twarzach mają więcej partnerów seksualnych, biorą ślub młodszym wieku i rzadziej pozostają starymi pannami / kawalerami. Z tych powodów mają oni większy sukces reprodukcyjny niż osoby nieatrakcyjne. (4) Atrakcyjność twarzy jest rzetelnym wskaźnikiem jakości biologicznej jej właściciela, np. odporności na pasożyty, sprawności fizycznej, sprawności reprodukcyjnej, długowieczności, inteligencji, zdrowia psychicznego, a także mniejszej liczby mutacji. (5) Całościowo, badania empiryczne potwierdzają tezę, że preferencje w odniesieniu do twarzy są biologicznymi adaptacjami, to znaczy, wykształciły się one na drodze ewolucji biologicznej, ponieważ pomagały w wyborze partnera o dobrych genach lub pożądanej osobowości. Słowa kluczowe: atrakcyjność twarzy, atrakcyjność fizyczna, preferencje estetyczne, twarz człowieka, piękno.
... Holistic vs. featural processing in newborns was also addressed in an investigation carried out by Slater et al. 42 . Previously it was shown that when newborns with an average age of less than 3 days were presented with pairs of female faces which varied only in the stimulus property of attractiveness as judged by adults, they showed consistent preference for the more attractive face in all face pairs 34 .This attractiveness effect in newborns was found to be orientation specific (such that newborns only looked at the attractive faces for longer time than the unattractive ones when faces were presented in upright but not in inverted orientation)as well as driven by the processing of internal facial features 42,43 . The orientation sensitive perception of facial novelty and judgement of facial attractiveness in newborns together indicate the existence of holistic processing of facial features that drives newborn's understandings of both identity and non-identity based facial information from the very first months of their lives. ...
... No study has yet addressed the issue of sensitivity of infants to the manipulation of second-order relations in the context of face processing. have found that infants of less than 3 days of age can distinguish between faces and show preference to the more attractive than to the less attractive faces based on their attention to the internal features of faces 43 . These results have raise the possibility that newborn's perception of differential attractiveness of faces may be due to their sensitivity to particular second-order relations among particular internal features, however the direct evidence is missing yet. ...
Human adults are endowed with the abilities to quickly
and accurately recognize the identity of other human
faces attributed to both configural processing (processing
the relations among the facial features as a cognitive
whole) and featural processing (independent processing
of information of individual facial features) of faces. Human infants, like adults, also show significant capacity
to recognize faces using both configural and featural modes
of information processing from the first months of their lives.
In this review, we have discussed the theories and
evidences that unveil the cognitive and neural mechanisms
that human infants employ for face recognition.
... Although interobserver variations exist (Hönekopp, 2006), the simple fact that there is agreement across cultures on what is attractive remains puzzling, and seems to be an argument in favor of an evolutionary explanation for the preferences for attractive faces (Hahn & Perrett, 2014;Little et al., 2011;Rhodes, 2006). The early onset of preferences for attractive faces can be shown in 2-to 15-month-old infants (Langlois et al., 1987;Langlois, Ritter, Roggman, & Vaughn, 1991;Samuels, Butterworth, Roberts, Graupner, & Hole, 1994;Samuels & Ewy, 1985;Van Duuren, Kendell-Scott, & Stark, 2003), and even in infants who are a few days old Slater et al., 2000a) and this is strong evidence that the perception of facial attractiveness is relatively independent from cultural standards. This review will highlight developmental research into attractiveness, and discuss whether infants' sensitivity to attractiveness extends to other domains than faces, for example objects or visual art. ...
... Perhaps the most compelling evidence against an explanation of the attractiveness preference based solely on cultural aspects can be found in the report of visual preference for attractive faces in few day-old neonates . Despite their poor visual acuity (Slater, 2002), and their reliance on low -rather than highspatial frequencies (de Heering et al., 2008), newborn infants displayed a preference for attractive faces that appeared to be orientation-dependent (i.e., occurring for upright but not inverted faces, Slater et al. 2000b), and driven by the internal features of the face (Slater et al., 2000a). These findings question whether the human visual system has prewired sensitivities to specific physical parameters of facial stimuli and if so, what the nature of these sensitivities could be (Quinn & Slater, 2003;Samuels & Ewy, 1985;Slater & Kirby, 1998;Slater et al., 2000b). ...
Despite some interpersonal variability, judgments of facial attractiveness are largely shared by most individuals, both within and between cultures. Infants are also sensitive to attractive faces even before being influenced by cultural standards of beauty. The intercultural agreement on this matter and its emergence during infancy suggest an evolutionary basis for facial attractiveness. Sensitivity to facial attractiveness is typically understood through evolutionary-based frameworks, either reflecting mate selection mechanisms or emerging as by-products of brain processing and perceptual sensory biases. In the current article, we review data on the emergence and the development of attractiveness preferences in infants, focusing on mechanisms that may explain or contribute to these preferences such as familiarity or fluency in processing. We further discuss the possibility that infants’ preference for attractiveness could extend to other stimuli than faces like objects or visual art. Potential directions for future research are proposed for developmental and comparative approaches.
... By scrambling and contouring the images, we provide a glimpse into the hierarchical processing of facial beauty by randomly initialized SPONTANEOUS EMERGENCE OF "A SENSE OF BEAUTY" 11 neural network models and confirm the contribution of configuration information and feature information to the representation of facial beauty. The configuration and feature information of faces are very important for the brain, which lacks knowledge of beauty, to process aesthetic values (Leo & Simion, 2009;Slater et al., 2000). It has been widely discussed whether configuration information or feature information is more important in facial aesthetics (Abbas & Duchaine, 2008;Liu et al., 2022;Orghian & Hidalgo, 2020). ...
The sense of facial beauty has long been observed in both infants and nonhuman primates, yet the neural mechanisms of this phenomenon are still not fully understood. The current study employed generative neural models to produce facial images of varying degrees of beauty and systematically investigated the neural response of untrained deep neural networks (DNNs) to these faces. Representational neural units for different levels of facial beauty are observed to spontaneously emerge even in the absence of training. Furthermore, these neural units can effectively distinguish between varying degrees of beauty. Additionally, the perception of facial beauty by DNNs relies on both configuration and feature information of faces. The processing of facial beauty by neural networks follows a progression from low-level features to integration. The tuning response of the final convolutional layer to facial beauty is constructed by the weighted sum of the monotonic responses in the early layers. These findings offer new insights into the neural origin of the sense of beauty, arising the innate computational abilities of DNNs.
... Current studies have also indicated that facial symmetry is an attractive signal. People with higher facial attractiveness often carry specific genes that contribute to symmetrical facial appearance [20] [21]. ...
... Newborns 3-4 days old habituate to a photograph of one face and dishabituate when presented with another (Pascalis & de Schonen, 1993). Moreover, infants, indeed newborns, prefer attractive faces (as judged by adults) over less attractive ones, and this is based on internal facial features (Slater et al., 1998(Slater et al., , 2000. As indicated, newborns also discriminate between their mother and a similar-looking woman in simultaneous discrimination paradigms. ...
Nine and 12-week-old infants (N = 140) who were either calm or crying sat facing a researcher for 3.5 min. The researcher gazed into the infant's eyes with a smiling face or looked above the infant's forehead. She delivered a 12% sucrose solution via a syringe or a pacifier, or she did not deliver anything. After the exposure period, the mother held her infant over her shoulder. Infant gaze direction was recorded while the infant faced the same researcher and a stranger. The confluence of sweet taste and eye contact was necessary and sufficient for calm 9- and 12-week-olds to form a preference for the researcher. Crying infants never did so, even though eye contact and sweet taste arrested crying. Different visual–gustatory combinations induced unanticipated affective states and are discussed within the contexts of cognitive mechanisms that mediate face learning and preference, the proximate mechanisms involved, and the evolutionary significance of face recognition.
... Similarly, children's impressions also drive their own social behaviour, including financial lending (Ewing et al., 2015(Ewing et al., , 2019, although not always with fully adult-like patterns (Mondloch et al., 2019). Most strikingly, even newborn infants show orienting responses towards more attractive faces (Slater et al., 1998(Slater et al., , 2000, and very young infants (only a few months old) prefer to look at attractive and trustworthy faces ( Jessen & Grossmann, 2016;Langlois et al., 1987). Event-related potentials recorded in seven-month old infants also distinguish between trustworthy and untrustworthy faces ( Jessen & Grossman, 2019). ...
Impressions from faces are made remarkably quickly and they can underpin behaviour in a wide variety of social contexts. Over the last decade many studies have sought to trace the links between facial cues and social perception and behaviour. One such body of work has shown clear overlap between the fields of face perception and social stereotyping by demonstrating a role for conceptual stereotypes in impression formation from faces. We integrate these results involving conceptual influences on impressions with another substantial body of research in visual cognition which demonstrates that much of the variance in impressions can be predicted from perceptual, data‐driven models using physical cues in face images. We relate this discussion to the phylogenetic, cultural, individual and developmental origins of facial impressions and define priority research questions for the field including investigating non‐WEIRD cultures, tracking the developmental trajectory of impressions and determining the malleability of impression formation.
... [42]), attractiveness might still be perceived after extreme LSF filtering in which the perception of face identity is compromised, since face recognition drops rapidly as a function of eccentricity [43][44]. Developmental studies (e.g., [45,46]) have shown that newborns prefer attractive faces, which implies that an immature visual system, devoid of visual experience, can process attractiveness already at birth. Considering also that the immature visual system of newborns is restricted to a range of LSF visible to adults [47], these findings also hint to a role of an early, subcortical, processing route for face aesthetics in humans [48]. ...
Images of European female and male faces were digitally processed to generate spatial frequency (SF) filtered images containing only a narrow band of visual information within the Fourier spectrum. The original unfiltered images and four SF filtered images (low, medium-low, medium-high and high) were then paired in trials that kept constant SF band and face gender and participants made a forced-choice decision about the more attractive among the two faces. In this way, we aimed at identifying those specific SF bands where forced-choice preferences corresponded best to forced-choice judgements made when viewing the natural, broadband, facial images. We found that aesthetic preferences dissociated across SFs and face gender, but similarly for participants from Asia (Japan) and Europe (Norway). Specifically, preferences when viewing SF filtered images were best related to the preference with the broadband face images when viewing the highest filtering band for the female faces (about 48–77 cycles per face). In contrast, for the male faces, the medium-low SF band (about 11–19 cpf) related best to choices made with the natural facial images. Eye tracking provided converging evidence for the above, gender-related, SF dissociations. We suggest greater aesthetic relevance of the mobile and communicative parts for the female face and, conversely, of the rigid, structural, parts for the male face for facial aesthetics.
... Beauty today is desired by many individuals. Past studies [Sla00] [Lan87] demonstrate that people who are considered more attractive usually tend to be perceived as more competent and, as a consequence, to be more favored in life than the less attractive ones. A beautiful person is naturally more attractive and holds the attention of a spectator more closely, favoring, for example, advertising, journalism and also teaching. ...
... Since people desire to interact with friendly and cooperative people, attractiveness conveys an advantage. Indeed, the preference for beauty appears innate: newborn infants also prefer to look at attractive faces: experiments show that most babies spend more time focusing on attractive faces than on unattractive ones (Slater et al., 2000). Therefore, the association (actual or perceived) between beauty and being friendly, trustworthy, cooperative, and sociable might be the reason why employers have a preference for the better-looking people. ...
We study the impact of physical attractiveness on productivity. Previous literature found a strong impact on wages and career progression, which can be either due to discrimination in favor of good-looking people or can reflect an association between attractiveness and productivity. We utilize a context where there is no or limited face-to-face interaction, academic publishing, so that the scope for beauty-based discrimination should be limited. Using data on around 2,000 authors of journal publications in economics, we find a significantly positive effect of authors’ attractiveness on both journal quality and citations. However, the impact on citations disappears after we control for journal quality.
... Facial traits (e.g. symmetry and gender typicality) indicating the biological fitness of an individual are crossculturally perceived as attractive (Perrett et al., 1999;Rhodes et al., 2001), and preferences for attractive faces are shown early in life with infants looking more towards attractive faces (Slater et al., 1998;Slater et al., 2000). Given the association of beauty and the motivational value it has, it is not surprising that processing of attractiveness recruits brain regions involved in face processing but also regions involved in the reward circuit (Aharon et al., 2001;Berridge and Kringelbach, 2008;O'Doherty et al., 2003;Winston et al., 2007; for a review see Senior, 2003), which implies that physical attractiveness may hold incentive salience (Kawabata and Zeki, 2004;Vartanian and Goel, 2004;Cupchik et al., 2009). ...
Decisions of attractiveness from the human face are made instantly and spontaneously, but robust implicit neural measures of facial attractiveness discrimination are currently lacking. Here we applied fast periodic visual stimulation coupled with electroencephalography (EEG) to objectively measure the neural coding of facial attractiveness. We presented different pictures of faces at 6 Hz, i.e. 6 faces/second, for a minute while participants attended to a central fixation cross and indicated whether the cross shortly changed color. Every other face in the stimulation was attractive and was replaced by a relatively less attractive face. This resulted in alternating more/less attractive faces at a 3 Hz rate, eliciting a significant increase in occipito-temporal EEG amplitude at 3 Hz both at the group and the individual participant level. This response was absent in two control conditions where either only attractive or only less attractive faces were presented. These observations support the view that face-sensitive visual areas discriminate attractiveness implicitly and rapidly from the human face.
... Our results also shed light on developmental and adult psychophysical literatures investigating the role of external features in face recognition. These literatures suggest that humans use external features from infancy (Slater et al., 2000;Turati et al., 2006), and continue to do so across development, albeit with an increasing tendency to rely on internal over external features (Campbell and Tuck, 1995;Want et al., 2003). Additional work in adults has shown a similar shift in the reliance on internal features as faces become more familiar (Ellis et al., 1979;O'Donnell and Bruce, 2001). ...
... This is evident from early infancy. Newborn infants pay attention to both internal and external features in their perception of attractiveness [19]. Adults also use both internal and external regions in attractiveness judgements [20]. ...
Facial attractiveness is often studied on the basis of the internal facial features alone. This study investigated how this exclusion of the external features affects the perception of attractiveness. We studied the effects of two most commonly used methods of exclusion, where the shape of an occluding mask was defined by either the facial outline or an oval. Participants rated attractiveness of the same faces under these conditions. Results showed that faces were consistently rated more attractive when they were masked by an oval shape rather than by their outline (Experiment 1). Attractive faces were more strongly affected by this effect than were less attractive faces when participants were able to control the viewing time. However, unattractive faces benefited more from this effect when the same face stimuli were presented briefly for only 20 ms (Experiment 2). Further manipulation confirmed that the effect was mainly due to the occlusion of a larger area of the external features rather than the regular and symmetrical features of the oval shape (Experiment 3) or lacks contextual cues about the face boundary (Experiment 4). The effect was only relative to masked faces, with no advantage over unmasked faces (Experiment 5), and is likely a result of the interaction between the shape of a mask and the internal features of the face. This holistic effect in the appraisal of facial attractiveness is striking, because the oval shape of the mask is not a part of the face but is the edge of an occluding object.
... Several factors specific to faces have been shown to influence newborn attentional biases. For example, when viewing faces, newborns demonstrate visual preferences for: open-eyes compared to closed-eyes (Batki et al., 2000), attractive faces compared to less attractive faces (Slater et al., 1998(Slater et al., , 2000a, direct compared to averted eye gaze (Farroni et al., 2002), and mother's face compared to a stranger's face (Field et al., 1984;Pascalis et al., 1995). Newborn attentional biases generalize to face-like patterns, such as top-heavy inverse triangles (Valenza et al., 1996;Simion et al., 2002), but by 3 months of age, infants only demonstrate preferences for faces, and the preference for top-heavy geometric patterns no longer exists (Chien, 2011). ...
We present an integrative review of research and theory on major factors involved in the early development of attentional biases to faces. Research utilizing behavioral, eye-tracking, and neuroscience measures with infant participants as well as comparative research with animal subjects are reviewed. We begin with coverage of research demonstrating the presence of an attentional bias for faces shortly after birth, such as newborn infants’ visual preference for face-like over non-face stimuli. The role of experience and the process of perceptual narrowing in face processing are examined as infants begin to demonstrate enhanced behavioral and neural responsiveness to mother over stranger, female over male, own- over other-race, and native over non-native faces. Next, we cover research on developmental change in infants’ neural responsiveness to faces in multimodal contexts, such as audiovisual speech. We also explore the potential influence of arousal and attention on early perceptual preferences for faces. Lastly, the potential influence of the development of attention systems in the brain on social-cognitive processing is discussed. In conclusion, we interpret the findings under the framework of Developmental Systems Theory, emphasizing the combined and distributed influence of several factors, both internal (e.g., arousal, neural development) and external (e.g., early social experience) to the developing child, in the emergence of attentional biases that lead to enhanced responsiveness and processing of faces commonly encountered in the native environment.
... Preferences for attractive female faces are based more on internal, rather than external, features of the face (Slater et al., 2000a). In addition, faces need to be upright for newborns and older infants to demonstrate such preferences (Slater, Quinn, Hayes, & Brown, 2000b). ...
... Attractiveness does seem to guide infants' visual interest in adult female faces, but does not consistently influence their interest in adult male faces. For example, across several studies, infants ranging in age from a few days old to 8 months looked longer at high attractive relative to low attractive female faces [32][33][34][35]. In two other studies that included both female and male face pairs, 3-to 6-month-olds showed a preference for the high attractive faces regardless of face pair gender-there were no effects or interactions involving stimulus gender [36,37]. ...
... In addition, studies suggested that neonates prefer to look at physically attractive human faces compared to less physically attractive human faces (Van Duuren et al., 2003;Quinn et al., 2008;Slater et al., 2000;Hahn and Perrett, 2014), but this ability to discriminate and respond to different emotional facial expressions by newborns remains controversial (Farroni et al., 2007). fMRI experiments have shown that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), which is a prefrontal cortex (PFC) region, was activated when mothers viewed a picture of their own infants (Nitschke et al., 2004). ...
In the 20th century, mother-infant separation shortly after birth in hospitals became routine and unique to humans. However, this hospital birth practice is different from the practice in our evolutionary history, where newborn survival depended on close and essentially continuous maternal contact. This time shortly after birth represents a psychophysiologically sensitive or critical period for programming future physiology and behaviour. We hypothesize that early maternal separation as conducted in conventional hospital practice may induce similar epigenetic changes similar to those found in various mental diseases that may also be implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders.
... Another concern is that 5-year-old children may not fully understand the concept of "attractiveness", especially attractiveness of adults. Dion found that 3-year-olds preschoolers had a discrimination of facial attractiveness of peers, and their judgments were in the same direction as adults' judgments 31 , suggesting that preschoolers are able to discriminate facial attractiveness of their peers 32,33 . Following our previous research 34 , the current study used photos of female adults instead of photos of gender-matched children. ...
Humans have a tendency to forgo their own attitudes or beliefs in order to better align with the interests of a majority, a behavioral process known as conformity. Social conformity has been widely studied among adults and adolescents, whereas experimental studies on the impact of peer influence among young children have been relatively limited. The current study aims to investigate both short-term and sustained conforming behaviors among children in situations of relatively low social pressure. Forty-one children aged 5 to 6 years rated the attractiveness of 90 faces presented serially followed by witnessing a group rating in the absence of peers. Subsequently, second judgement was made after 30 minutes (Experiment 1). Results show that 6-year-old children tended to conform to their peers when group ratings differed from their own ratings, while younger children did not. In Experiment 2, children were required to make the second judgment one day after exposure to group ratings. Similarly, children aged 6 years exhibited a sustained conformity effect even after one day. Our findings suggest that 6-year-old children spontaneously change their private opinions under implicit social influence from peers.
... The link between potential cues to health in the face and perceived attractiveness is one explanation for the 'attractiveness halo effect'. Research suggests this preference for attractive (or healthy looking) individuals appears early in infancy, with infants as young as two-months old gazing longer at attractive faces over unattractive or unusual looking faces [48,49]. It is unknown whether or not such preferential looking reflects early learning [50][51][52]. ...
Despite the old adage not to 'judge a book by its cover', facial cues often guide first impressions and these first impressions guide our decisions. Literature suggests there are valid facial cues that assist us in assessing someone's health or intelligence, but such cues are overshadowed by an 'attractiveness halo' whereby desirable attributions are preferentially ascribed to attractive people. The impact of the attractiveness halo effect on perceptions of academic performance in the classroom is concerning as this has shown to influence students' future performance. We investigated the limiting effects of the attractiveness halo on perceptions of actual academic performance in faces of 100 university students. Given the ambiguity and various perspectives on the definition of intelligence and the growing consensus on the importance of conscientiousness over intelligence in predicting actual academic performance, we also investigated whether perceived conscientiousness was a more accurate predictor of academic performance than perceived intelligence. Perceived conscientiousness was found to be a better predictor of actual academic performance when compared to perceived intelligence and perceived academic performance, and accuracy was improved when controlling for the influence of attractiveness on judgments. These findings emphasize the misleading effect of attractiveness on the accuracy of first impressions of competence, which can have serious consequences in areas such as education and hiring. The findings also have implications for future research investigating impression accuracy based on facial stimuli.
... An analogue of the "inversion effect," similar to the one observed with adults (e.g., Leder & Bruce, 2000;Yin, 1969), has been documented in 4-month-old infants, who have been shown to be impaired in a recognition task with inverted faces as compared to upright faces (Turati, Sangrigoli, Ruel, & de Schonen, 2004). Moreover, it has been shown that stimulus inversion disrupts newborns' preference for attractive over unattractive face ("attractiveness effect"; Slater et al., 2000). ...
This chapter examines (1) whether some constraints or prewired attentional biases are present at birth; (2) if these constraints are general or specific; and (3) how they contribute to guide and shape cognitive activity. In order to address these issues, a peculiar class of visual stimuli, namely faces, will be taken into consideration, because faces form a special class of visual objects elaborated in adults by a specific face system. The first part of the chapter focuses on the mechanisms underlying infants' visual preference for faces, and on the visuoperceptual constraints that induce newborns to prefer faces. The second part of the chapter reviews the studies on the nature of the information newborns actually process and encode when they look at faces as compared to nonface stimuli; more specifically, whether the recognition of faces at birth requires the same nonspecific generalized perceptual abilities that are involved in processing all types of visual stimuli.
... This interpretation is compromised by findings with newborns. The " attractiveness effect " has been found in newborns who averaged under 3 days of age at the time of testing (Slater et al., 1998), and in newborns the effect is orientation-specific in that it is found with upright, but not inverted, faces (Slater, Quinn, Hayes, & Brown, 2000) and is driven by attention to the internal features (Slater et al., 2000). Also, newborns, within a few minutes from birth, show face-specific responses: they track facelike stimuli more than nonfacelike ones (Goren et al., 1975), and they will imitate facial gestures produced by the first face they see (Reissland, 1988). ...
... As reviewed in multiple chapters, neonates are preferentially sensitive to face-like stimuli and they track moving faces longer than other moving patterns of comparable complexity, contrast, and spatial frequency (Easterbrook, Kisilevsky, Hains, & Muir, 1999;Johnson, Dziurawiec, Ellis, & Morton, 1991;Valenza, Simion, Cassia, & Umilta, 1996). Newborn babies less than 3-days-old prefer attractive faces based on internal features and their sensitivity is restricted to the upright orientation (Slater et al., 2000). Young infants are especially sensitive to the presence of eyes in a face (Batki, Baron-Cohen, Wheelright, Connellan, & Ahluwalia, 2001), and distinguish faces whose gaze is directed toward as opposed to away from them (Farroni, Csibra, Simion, & Johnson, 2002). ...
The chapters in this volume comprise a small sample of a broad multidisciplinary effort to understand how humans navigate their labyrinthine social world. Social attention is fundamental to this endeavor because it determines what information is processed by the individual. In this final chapter we begin by summarizing some of the major findings from this volume, and, in so doing, emphasize how the field has significantly changed during this last century. We then discuss why these findings are still tentative and incomplete as researchers are beginning to confront a number of new challenges and opportunities while studying social attention including: (1) innovative technologies, (2) multimodal data, (3) live vs. pre-recorded stimuli, and (4) first- vs. third-person perspectives. Implicit throughout this volume has been the assumption that social attention is somehow distinct and perhaps specialized, which inevitably leads to controversy, and thus we decided to address this issue directly before concluding. In order to achieve some conceptual coherence, we divide our discussion into three logically separable issues: innateness vs. acquisition of expertise, the existence of domain specificity, and brain localization. We conclude with some recommendations on how social attention might be investigated in the future, and argue that social attention should be broadened and studied as a dynamical system - a system that is high-dimensional, multi-level, multi-causal, and nonlinear.
... Strikingly, even the youngest infants exhibit precocious face perception abilities. Despite their poor visual acuity, newborns preferentially orient to faces (Goren, Sarty, & Wu, 1975;Maurer & Young, 1983), look for longer at attractive than unattractive faces (Slater et al., 1998(Slater et al., , 2000, and become sensitive to emotional expressions in the 1st year of their life (e.g., Lepp€ anen, Moulson, Vogel-Farley, & Nelson, 2007;Taylor-Colls & Fearon, 2015). ...
Newborn infants orient preferentially toward face-like or "protoface" stimuli and recent studies suggest similar reflexive orienting responses in adults. Little is known, however, about the operation of this mechanism in childhood. An attentional-cueing procedure was therefore developed to investigate protoface orienting in early childhood. Consistent with the extant literature, 5- to 6-year-old children (n = 25) exhibited orienting toward face-like stimuli; they responded faster when target location was cued by the appearance of a protoface stimulus than when location was cued by matched control patterns. The potential of this procedure to investigate the development of typical and atypical social perception is discussed.
... A basic attraction to faces is apparent from birth, and face preferences develop progressively across infancy, childhood and adolescence. Neonates and older infants spend more time looking at attractive than unattractive faces (Langlois, Ritter, Roggman, & Vaughn, 1991;Samuels, Butterworth, Roberts, Grauper, & Hole, 1994;Slater et al., 1998;Slater et al., 2000). Children as young as four or five years of age agree with adults explicitly about which people are attractive (Boothroyd, Meins, Vukovic, & Burt, 2014;Cavior & Lombardi, 1973;Kissler & Bäuml, 2000). ...
Much research has documented how people’s face preferences vary, but we do not know whether there is a specific sensitive period during development when some individual differences in face preferences become established. This study investigates which specific developmental phases may be instrumental in forming individual differences in face preferences in adulthood. The study design is based on the established finding that people tend to be attracted to facial features that resemble those of their other-sex parent, particularly if they report a close childhood relationship with that parent. Accordingly, if individual differences in adult facial preferences (specifically, preferences for faces that resemble one’s parents) are formed during specific developmental stages, then only the quality of the parental relationship in those stages should predict adult preferences for facial features that resemble one’s parents. Adult participants reported the emotional support received from their parents during three different developmental phases and at the current time, and they reported the hair and eye colour of their ideal and actual partner, and their parents and selves. The study found that a woman’s retrospectively reported greater emotional support from her mother or father after menarche predicted significantly stronger preferences for partners whose eye colour was closer to that of the parent. In contrast, emotional support prior to menarche predicted greater dissimilarity between the eye colour of the parent and a woman’s preferred partner. These results indicate a possible interplay of positive and negative sexual imprinting that may arise from adaptations to promote optimal outbreeding. The study also found that parental hair colour, and in particular maternal hair colour, predicted women’s preferences for hair colour in a partner, although this may have been driven by ethnic group matching. The results of the study suggest that experiences during specific childhood and adolescent developmental periods may have longstanding effects on individual differences in human facial preferences.
Full text available online (open access): http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513815000598
... Despite their poor visual acuity, newborns preferentially orient to faces (Goren, Sarty, & Wu, 1975;Maurer & Young, 1983), look for longer at attractive than unattractive faces (Slater et al., 1998;2000), and become sensitive to emotional expressions in the first year of their life (e.g., Leppänen, Moulson, Vogel-Farley, & Nelson, 2007;Taylor-Colls & Fearon, in press). ...
Newborn infants orient preferentially toward face-like or ‘protoface’ stimuli and recent studies suggest similar reflexive orienting responses in adults. Little is known, however, about the operation of this mechanism in childhood. An attentional-cueing procedure was therefore developed to investigate protoface orienting in early childhood. Consistent with the extant literature, 5- to 6-year-old children (n = 25) exhibited orienting toward face-like stimuli; they responded faster when target location was cued by the appearance of a protoface stimulus than when location was cued by matched control patterns. The potential of this procedure to investigate the development of typical and atypical social perception is discussed.
... Newborns show a preference for and can discriminate faces from other classes of objects and abstract stimuli (Bushnell, Sai, & Mullin, 1989;Cassia, Turati, & Simion, 2004;Johnson & Morton, 1991;Turati, Simion, Milani, & Umiltà, 2002). By 3 months, infants can categorize faces by gender, race, and attractiveness (Kelly et al., 2005(Kelly et al., , 2007Langlois, Ritter, Roggman, & Vaughn, 1991;Quinn, Yahr, Kuhn, Slater, & Pascalis, 2002;Slater, Bremner et al., 2000;Slater, Quinn, Hayes, & Brown, 2000), and by 5 to 7 months they begin to rely on both featural and configural information for face identification (Cohen & Cashon, 2001). Despite these early abilities, the behavioral evidence is strong that expertise in face processing develops slowly and over many years (for review see Lee, Quinn, Pascalis, & Slater, 2013). ...
Multiple regions in the human brain respond preferentially to visual face stimuli. Functionally, these regions are organized around a “core” system primarily responsible for perceptual analysis, and an “extended” system associated with non-visual functions related to emotional, semantic, and dynamic analysis of faces. Recent evidence suggests that some of these regions, specifically in the core system, undergo protracted development extending into adolescence; however, few studies have examined the development of face-processing systems using whole-brain measures. Here, we report functional MRI findings from 30 children (6–12 years), 20 adolescents (13–16 years), and 21 adults (18–40 years) tested in a simple blocked-design viewing task for faces, diverse objects, watches, and scrambled stimuli (i.e., localizer task). A region of interest (ROI) analysis focused on the right fusiform face area (rFFA), the area within the fusiform gyrus where a Faces > Objects contrast was significant (p < 0.005). Consistent with recent reports using visual recognition paradigms, FFA volume showed a linear increase with age. Regression analysis of whole-brain BOLD signal intensity showed a positive correlation of age within the right occipital face area (OFA). Thus, two primary components of the core system were positively correlated with age. In striking contrast, children produced significantly greater activation relative to adults in multiple regions outside of ventral occipital-temporal cortex, specifically in regions within the extended system, including bilateral amygdala, precuneus, and inferior frontal gyrus. The findings indicate that a prolonged developmental trajectory is observed in other face preferential regions in addition to areas in the core system. More critically, the activation patterns suggest that children do not modulate activity within the extended system during simple face viewing whereas adults limit face-preferential processing to regions in the core system. Thus, modulation of activation to faces must be a key component in perceptual development.
... Infants less than three days old prefer photographs of adult faces judged by adults as more attractive, an effect driven by attention to internal facial features rather than external face shape (Slater et al., 2000). Infants also show a visual preference for infant faces judged more attractive by adults (Van Duuren, Kendell-Scott, & Stark, 2003) as well as for faces of cats and lions judged more attractive (Quinn, Kelly, Kang, Pascalis, & Slater, 2008). ...
This chapter examines evidence for phylogenetic origins that is revealed in continuities between face perception in nonhuman animals and human infants and the first impressions shown by human adults. It provides four kinds of evidence pertinent to the evolutionary origins of impression formation. First, it shows a phylogenetic foundation for overgeneralization effects in a shared sensitivity across species to particular facial qualities and their affordances. Second, it shows similar sensitivities in human infants. Third, it provides direct evidence that overgeneralized reactions to these facial qualities contribute to first impressions. Finally, the chapter provides neural data concerning the arguments presented. This is done for facial qualities that convey familiarity, neoteny, emotion, fitness, and species.
Women score higher than men on measures of social cognition such as empathy and reading non‐verbal cues. How early does this gender difference emerge? Systematic review and meta‐analyses were used to assess gender difference in social perception within 1 month of birth. A total of 31 studies (40 experiments) reported on gender effects in 1936 neonates (50% girls) between 1968 and 2021. No significant difference (Hedges’ g = 0.076, p = 0.321) was found across 20 experiments measuring visual fixation on human faces. Nine experiments on neonatal imitative crying also revealed no gender difference ( g = 0.157, p = 0.118). Seven studies using the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale found no gender difference in total orientation ( g = 0.161, p = 0.154), but girls oriented more to both animate ( g = 0.279, p = 0.011) and inanimate ( g = 0.242, p = 0.003) stimuli in the studies that analyzed these separately. Existing evidence supports a possible maturational difference but not a specific social advantage for girls at birth. While more research and better reporting are needed, the present findings challenge the claim that girls are innately more socially perceptive than boys.
This chapter explores the multifaceted concept of “facial beauty and attractiveness,” a subject that has captivated scientists, artists, philosophers, and anthropologists alike. The quest for beauty, often manifesting in the pursuit of cosmetic enhancements, is not a modern phenomenon but a timeless human preoccupation, deeply rooted in the history and literature of every culture and ethnicity. Historical evidence underscores how societies across ages have endeavored to align their appearance with the prevailing beauty ideals of their time. Facial aesthetics and attractiveness represent a complex interplay of various disciplines including neuroscience, psychology, sociology, biology, and mathematics. This complexity is indicative of the cognitive intricacies involved in the perception of integrated beauty, which cannot be fully understood through a singular lens focusing solely on aesthetic appeal. The analysis of beauty standards, influenced by both intrinsic biological factors and extrinsic cultural and social norms, reveals a dynamic interplay between the objective and subjective determinants of beauty. Cross-cultural studies highlight the variability in beauty standards, yet also point to an underlying unity, suggesting a collective human inclination towards certain aesthetic qualities. Understanding facial beauty extends beyond the superficial, engaging with the neurological responses elicited by aesthetically pleasing features, such as the activation of the medial orbitofrontal cortex in response to attractive faces and expressions. This chapter seeks to provide aesthetic practitioners with a deeper insight into the complex dimensions of beauty, illuminating the integrated nature of facial aesthetics as it intersects with human psychology, societal influences, and biological imperatives.
Facial beauty has a fundamental impact on our lives from an early age. The definition of beauty and what makes a face attractive are topics that have been debated since inception and have kept the interest of scholars, professions, and laypersons. Studies on beauty and attractiveness are diverse and date back centuries. Ongoing research and recent publications examine various components of beauty including symmetry, averageness, facial proportions, and sexual dimorphism. Evidence of preferences in early development, inherent natural tendency towards beauty, and cross-cultural agreement on attractiveness have been published. Neoclassical canons, primarily introduced by Ancient Greeks and the Renaissance, have been used to describe facial morphological features. Although deep rooted in art and philosophy, these are not valid for all populations and ethnicities. Interethnic variability in facial dimensions exists. Evaluation and assessment of facial features and aesthetics is crucial prior to treatment planning in the field of aesthetics, dentofacial treatments (prosthodontic, orthodontics, maxillofacial, and orthognatic surgery), and plastic facial reconstructive surgery. This chapter explores studies on facial beauty and discusses cultural variations in the standards of beauty. The ideals of beauty shift throughout times and cultures. With globalisation, access to international media and connections, these ideals are becoming more inclusive. However, cultural variations still exist. The general principles of beauty and aesthetic enhancement appear to be universal with similar aesthetic goals that are modestly influenced by culture, environment, and media.
In diesem Kapitel behandeln wir die Entwicklung in drei eng miteinander verwandten Bereichen: der Wahrnehmung, dem Handeln und dem Lernen. Unsere Darstellung konzentriert sich vorrangig auf die frühe Kindheit, da sich während der ersten beiden Lebensjahre eines Kindes in allen drei Bereichen außerordentlich schnelle Entwicklungen vollziehen. Ein weiterer Grund hat damit zu tun, dass die Entwicklung in den genannten Bereichen während dieser Lebensphase besonders eng miteinander verwoben ist: Beginnt ein Kind beispielsweise zu krabbeln und dann zu laufen, wird zunehmend mehr von der Welt für es zugänglich so dass es immer mehr entdecken und lernen kann.
Throughout history, civilizations have admired the beauty in the world. Beauty can be used to describe people, places, animals, objects, and even ideas. This chapter focuses on human beauty, starting with historical perspectives, then discussing mathematical and assessment beauty tools, and ending with case studies. Throughout history, beauty has demonstrated that physical attractiveness is an important quality or possession, comparable to power, intelligence, strength, wealth, education, or family. The goal of aesthetic treatments is comprehensive improvement, which, for most patients, will involve a combination of plastic surgery, lasers, and injectables. Ever since its birth in Classical Greece, the golden ratio has persisted as an underlying benchmark for beauty, influencing a variety of aesthetic disciplines as well as deepening the understanding of beauty in the natural world. Facial proportions according to neoclassical canons and facial golden ratios are most often referenced.
People discover who they are through interaction with others, beginning with caregivers. This chapter looks at this development of self in a social context using theory, research and interview material. The potentially crucial differences between congenital and acquired difference are considered in this context. Reflective questions for therapists are interspersed with this material, to emphasise the relevance to adult casework.
Examining hedonic questions of processing fluency, objective stimulus clarity, and goodness-of-fit in face perception, across three experiments (blur, contrast, occlusion) in which subjects performed the simple, natural task of rank-ordering faces by attractiveness, we find a very consistent and powerful effect of reduced visual input increasing perceived attractiveness. As images of faces are blurred (i.e., as higher spatial frequencies are lost, mimicking at-a-distance, eccentric, or otherwise unaccommodated viewing, tested down to roughly 6 cycles across the face), reduced in contrast (linearly, down to 33% of the original image's), and even half-occluded, the viewer's impression of the faces' attractiveness, relative to non- or less-degraded faces, is greatly enhanced. In this regard, the blur manipulation exhibits a classic exponential profile, the contrast manipulation follows a simple linear trend. Given the far superior attractiveness of half-occluded faces, which have no symmetry whatsoever, we also see that it may be incorrect to claim that facial symmetry is attractive and perhaps more accurate that asymmetry may be unattractive. As tested with a total of 200 novel female faces over three experiments, we find absolutely no male/female differences in this "partial information effect" of enhanced subjective attraction, nor do we find differences across the repetition of the task through to a second block of trials in which the faces are re-encountered and no longer novel. Finally, whereas objective stimulus quality is reduced, we suggest a positive hedonic experience arises as a subjective phenomenological index of enhanced perceptual goodness-of-fit, counter-intuitively facilitated by what may be stimulus-distilling image-level manipulations.
Judgments of facial attractiveness are central to decision-making in various domains, but little is known about the extent to which they are malleable. In this study, we used EEG/ERP methods to examine two novel influences on neural and subjective responses to facial attractiveness: an observer’s expectation and repetition. In each trial of our task, participants viewed either an ordinary or attractive face. To alter expectations, the faces were preceded by a peer-rating that ostensibly reflected the overall attractiveness value assigned to that face by other individuals. To examine the impact of repetition, trials were presented twice throughout the experimental session. Results showed that participants’ expectations about a person’s attractiveness level powerfully altered both the neural response (i.e., the late positive potential; LPP) and self-reported attractiveness ratings. Intriguingly, repetition enhanced both the LPP and self-reported attractiveness as well. Exploratory analyses further suggested that both observer expectation and repetition modulated early neural responses (i.e., the Early Posterior Negativity; EPN) elicited by facial attractiveness. Collectively, these results highlight novel influences on a core social judgment that underlies individuals’ affective lives.
Previous research has shown that people are better at remembering attractive faces than unattractive faces, possibly because physical attractiveness is a sign of increased mate value. However, perceivers' may rely on additional appearance cues (e.g., bodily features, dress) when assessing mate value. Thus, men may remember more about a female target when she possesses more attractive bodily features, such as a waist-to-hip ratio that approaches the optimal .70. Two studies were conducted to examine whether female waist-to-hip ratio influences the number of details men recall and recognize about a female target. Study 1 utilized a free recall method, whereas Study 2 consisted of a recognition method. Results indicated that men who viewed a female target with a waist-to-hip ratio of .50 or .90 recalled and recognized significantly fewer details than men who viewed a female target with a waist-to-hip ratio of.60, .70, and .80. These data illustrate adaptive memory, whereby perceivers better remember information of greater adaptive value to them, because this information may lead them to make better fitness-related decisions about whom to potentially mate with. Limitations regarding the realism of the photographs and generalizability of the data are also discussed.
Der
vier Monate alte Benjamin sitzt in seinem Kindersitz auf der Arbeitsplatte der Küchenzeile und schaut seinen Eltern beim Abwasch zu. Was er beobachtet, sind zwei Menschen, die sich von selbst bewegen, und eine Auswahl an Gegenständen aus Glas, Keramik und Metall unterschiedlicher Größe und Form, die sich nur dann bewegen, wenn sie von einem Menschen in die Hand genommen werden. Andere Bestandteile der Szene bewegen sich überhaupt nicht. Bei ihrer Tätigkeit entströmen den sich bewegenden Lippen der Eltern charakteristische Geräusche (nur wir wissen, dass das Sprachlaute sind), während andere Geräusche entstehen, wenn sie Besteck, Pfannen, Gläser und Spülschwämme auf der Arbeitsplatte ablegen. Einmal sieht Benjamin eine Tasse völlig aus seinem Sichtfeld verschwinden, als sein Vater sie hinter einen Kochtopf stellt; kurz darauf taucht sie wieder auf, nachdem der Topf weggestellt wurde. Benjamin
sieht Gegenstände auch verschwinden, wenn sie durch den Schaum ins Spülwasser getaucht werden, aber er sieht niemals, dass die Gegenstände einander durchdringen. Die auf der Arbeitsplatte platzierten Gegenstände bleiben jeweils so stehen, wie sie hingestellt wurden, bis Benjamins Vater ein Kristallglas so hinstellt, dass mehr als die Hälfte über den Rand übersteht. Es folgt ein klirrendes Geräusch, das alle drei anwesenden Personen erschreckt, und Benjamin erschrickt noch mehr, als die beiden Erwachsenen anfangen, scharfe, laute Geräusche gegeneinander auszusenden, ganz anders als die sanften, angenehmen Laute, die sie zuvor produziert hatten. Als Benjamin als Reaktion darauf zu weinen beginnt, stürzen die beiden Erwachsenen zu ihm hin, tätscheln ihn und machen für ihn sanfte, besonders angenehme Geräusche.
The human face is a part of the body with a special significance. Apart from the evidence of everyday experience, several scientific studies have proven that the facial esthetic image exerts a significant impact on personal behavior and on social relationships and interactions. The human brain governs the appropriate neural mechanisms for evaluating facial beauty, but no one can define with accuracy the meaning of this beauty. Four parameters have been proposed as the regulating factors for the grading of the beauty of a face. These parameters are average characteristics, symmetry, sexual dimorphism and a youthful image. These parameters may have been created through the process of evolution, or they may be just by-products of the procedure with which the brain elaborates information.
Infants possess only rudimentary face-processing skills, evidence from patients treated for congenital cataract and from monkeys deprived of face input for several months postnatally indicates that this early experience plays a key role in the ultimate development of expert face processing. This article provides evidence that early visual deprivation disrupts some but not all aspects of face processing and that the deficits caused by early visual deprivation are face-specific, but that it is visual deprivation rather than the lack of input from faces per se that causes the deficits to occur. The evidence is placed from visually deprived monkeys and humans into a broader context showing the role of biased experience on the development of expert face processing.
IntroductionTheoretical OverviewSensory and Perceptual FunctioningVisual Organization at and Near BirthIs there an Innate Representation of the Human Face?Early Experience and LearningEmerging Questions, Paradigms, IssuesConclusions
Evolutionary psychology has been proposed as a new metatheory for the social sciences (Buss, 1995). Evolutionary psychology is an approach that emphasizes the evolutionary background of psychological phenomena (e.g., cognition, motivation, perception), with the expectation that knowledge about this background enhances our understanding of the working of the present human mind. This proposal has met with both enthusiasm and criticism. An important criticism is that it is hard, if possible at all, to find empirical evidence for a hypothesized psychological adaptation. This criticism has been addressed with the proposal to build a nomological network of evidence around a hypothesized psychological adaptation (Schmitt&Pilcher, 2004). In this article, we show that it is possible to use this nomological network of evidence to support the hypothesis that face recognition is an adaptation. We reviewed the literature on face recognition from different disciplines (psychology, medicine, neuroscience, genetics, primatology, and anthropology) and conclude that there is an extensive network of evidence for the proposed hypothesis. We argue that building a nomological network of evidence is a promising way to address several criticisms of evolutionary psychology, and that such a network can serve as a metatheoretical framework for the social sciences.
Advertising images increasingly require attractive faces to attract the public’s attention. Several studies have been conducted to enhance facial attractiveness in images. While some researchers suggest changes in geometrical shape, others advocate modifying the appearance of the facial skin; however, there have been few attempts to explore the possibility of combining both techniques. This paper sets out a novel method of doing this: facial geometry and skin texture modifications. Our method, which is based on supervised machine learning techniques, is able to improve the attractiveness of faces in images while preserving the original features of the picture. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of this combination by carrying out two different evaluations. Accordingly, we analyze the significance of each change that is designed to improve attractiveness by comparing the original image with a) the image in which only the facial geometry has been modified, b) the image in which only the texture skin has been modified and finally c) the image with both modifications. Our results reveal that the combination of geometric and skin texture modifications results in the most significant enhancement. It also demonstrates that modifications to the skin texture can be regarded as more important to obtain an attractive face than changes to the facial geometry. Additionally, evaluations are provided to quantify the gain in facial attractiveness and it should be pointed out that our method is the first to employ these, since there are no references to such tests in the literature.
Neonatal imitative responses were studied in 12 Maithil neonates (6 boys and 6 girls) during their first hour postpartum. No drugs were administered prior to or during labor, and the delivery was concluded without complications. The neonates observed two modeling conditions: lips widened and lips pursed. It was found that neonates moved their lips significantly more often in accordance with the model's lip position than at variance with the positions. These results suggest, when considered in the light of studies of Caucasian infants of North American and European parentage, that imitative capacity is present at birth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two studies, one with 2- to 3-month-olds and one with 6- to 8-month-olds, were conducted to examine infant preferences for attractive faces. A standard visual preference technique was used in which infants were shown pairs of color slides of the faces of adult women previously rated by other adults for attractiveness. The results showed that both the older and younger infants looked longer at attractive faces when the faces were presented in contrasting pairs of attractiveness (attractive/unattractive). When the faces were presented in pairs of similar levels of attractiveness (attractive/attractive vs. unattractive/unattractive) the older but not the younger infants looked longer at attractive faces. The results challenge the commonly held assumption that standards of attractiveness are learned through gradual exposure to the current cultural standard of beauty and are merely "in the eye of the beholder." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Previous experimenters have found that 4-day-old neonates look longer at their mother's face than at a stranger's face. We have replicated this finding under conditions where the infants are only provided with visual information on identity, with all the usual stimuli associated with the presence of the mother's face absent. The structure responsible for this cannot be equated with Conspec, the innate structure underlying face preference in neonates (Johnson & Morton, 1991). In a second experiment, we show that infants do not discriminate mother from stranger when both women are wearing head scarves. This indicates that, unlike older infants (de Schonen, Gil de Diaz, & Mathivet, 1986; de Schonen & Mathivet, 1990), neonates acquire a representation of their mother's face in which the hair line and outer contour have an integral part. This suggests that the system responsible for the neonates' performance is not the same as the one at work in older infants.
Infants between 12 and 21 days of age can imitate both facial and manual gestures; this behavior cannot be explained in terms of either conditioning or innate releasing mechanisms. Such imitation implies that human neonates can equate their own unseen behaviors with gestures they see others perform.
Twenty-four 5-week-old infants sucked significantly less when shown a schematic face in which the eye dots oscillated at 4 or 7 cm/sec than when shown the same face with the eye dots oscillating at 1 cm/sec. When identical moving dots were presented in the absence of the surrounding facial configuration, infants showed the same pattern of response. These results indicate (a) that 5-week-old infants can attend to intrastimulus movement, and (b) that the “externality effect” does not extend to compound visual displays which have moving internal elements.
Scientists and philosophers have searched for centuries for a parsimonious answer to the question of what constitutes beauty. We approached this problem from both an evolutionary and information-processing rationale and predicted that faces representing the average value of the population would be consistently judged as attractive. To evaluate this hypothesis, we digitized samples of male and female faces, mathematically averaged them, and had adults judge the attractiveness of both the individual faces and the computer-generated composite images. Both male (three samples) and female (three samples) composite faces were judged as more attractive than almost all the individual faces comprising the composites. A strong linear trend also revealed that the composite faces became more attractive as more faces were entered. These data showing that attractive faces are only average are consistent with evolutionary pressures that favor characteristics close to the mean of the population and with cognitive processes that favor prototypical category members.
analyze what infants understand a physical object to be / examine the criteria infants use to maintain object identity over successive perceptual contacts / examine infants' understanding of human bodies as a special case of physical objects and their grasp of the idea that their own bodies are like other human bodies / analyze infants' developing conception of persons / examine how infants distinguish human individuals and determine their particular identity / examine the development of infants' understanding of humans as bearers of psychological properties / conclude by analyzing how the developments previously described might lead to a concept of the self as an entity in a world full of others and a concept of the other possessing a subjectivity as rich as the self (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Three experiments are described which investigated the ability of neonates to discriminate between the face of their mother and that of a strange adult female and to show face recognition. The first experiment indicated a reliable preference for the mother's face even where a control for olfactory information was used. No evidence for any effect of sex or breast vs. bottle feeding was found. A second experiment used the same procedure but substituted a visual mask for the olfactory one previously adopted. Under these conditions no evidence of preference was found. Finally, a third experiment considered the possibility that mothers were actively recruiting their own infant's attention and found that adult observers were unable reliably to distinguish mothers from strangers on the basis of any differential behaviour by mother and stranger. The conclusion is drawn that neonates can recognize their mother on the basis of visual clues alone and that these cues relate to memory for featural attributes of the mother's face rather than to attention-recruiting behaviour on her part.
This study explores the visual preferences of young infants for faces that differ with respect to their perceived attractiveness, as evaluated by adult raters. Black-and-white slides were presented to infants in 12 paired comparisons. Both 3-month-old (n = 26) and 6-month-old (n = 35) infants looked longer at the faces rated attractive. Pairs were constructed so that members of each pair were as similar as possible in gross physical appearance, differing only in rated attractiveness. The implications of an aesthetic sensitivity in such young infants are briefly explored.
A number of recent studies have shown that newborns prefer to look at mother's face rather than at the face of a stranger. This preference can be seen as the result of familiarity with the mother's face, stemming from a greater number of encounters with mother's face. A schema theory can deal with this kind of recognition. Recent work with verbal stimuli has shown that newborns are sensitive to primacy and recency as well as simple familiarity. A pilot and one complete experiment were carried out to examine whether primacy and recency operated with faces as well. Results indicated that primacy, but not recency, was effective. The results show very rapid learning, learning that may outpace the capacity of any extant model of perceptual learning.
Newborn infants discriminate their mother's face from the face of a stranger shortly after birth. The neonates (M age=45 hours) showed an initial preference for their mother's face. The mother's face (or face and voice) was then presented to the neonates for repeated trials until the infant reached an habituation criterion. In a subsequent discrimination test the infants looked significantly longer at the stranger's face, suggesting that the mother's face was discriminated after very limited experience. Although voice cues were not required for this discrimination, the possibility remains that other cues, such as the mother's odor, may facilitate the discrimination of her face.
Several previous experiments have found that infants 2 months of age and older will spend more time looking at attractive faces when these are shown paired with faces judged by adults to be unattractive. Two experiments are described whose aim was to find whether the “attractiveness effect” is present soon after birth. In both, pairings of attractive and unattractive female faces (as judged by adult raters) were shown to newborn infants (in the age range 14–151 hours from birth), and in both the infants looked longer at the attractive faces. These findings can be interpreted either in terms of an innate perceptual mechanism that detects and responds specifically to faces, or in terms of rapid learning about faces soon after birth.
Newborns, ranging from 12 to 36 hours of age, produced significantly more sucking responses in order to see an image of their mothers' faces as opposed to an image of strangers' faces using a preferential operant sucking procedure.
When presented with two-element geometric stimuli, with one element enclosed within the other, infants under 2 months of age do not appear to detect the internal element and fail to respond to a change in that element. Infants over 2 months of age experience no difficulty in this respect. However, it is established that this “externality effect” does break down under certain circumstances, for example, where there is independent modulation of the internal element. Evidence is presented which appears to run counter to explanations of this effect in terms of information processing limitations, capture of attention by dominant salience, or level of arousal. An alternative explanation based on figure-ground organization is given partial support.
Infants between 12 and 21 days of age can imitate both facial and manual gestures; this behavior cannot be explained in terms
of either conditioning or innate releasing mechanisms. Such imitation implies that human neonates can equate their own unseen
behaviors with gestures they see others perform.
Newborn infants ranging in age from 0.7 to 71 hours old were tested for their ability to imitate 2 adult facial gestures: mouth opening and tongue protrusion. Each subject acted as his or her own control in a repeated-measures design counterbalanced for order of stimulus presentation. The subjects were tested in low illumination using infrared-sensitive video equipment. The videotaped records were scored by an observer who was uninformed about the gesture shown to the infants. Both frequency and duration of neonatal mouth openings and tongue protrusions were tallied. The results showed that newborn infants can imitate both adult displays. 3 possible mechanisms underlying this early imitative behavior are suggested: instrumental or associative learning, innate releasing mechanisms, and active intermodal matching. It is argued that the data favor the third account.
Neonatal recognition of the mother's face
- I W R Bushnell
- F Sai
- J T Mullin
Bushnell, I. W. R., Sai, F., & Mullin, J. T. (1989). Neonatal recognition of the mother's face. British
Journal of Developmental Psychology, 7, 3-15.
Neonatal recognition of the mother's face.
- Bushnell I. W. R.
The science of the face.
- Young A.