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Colour homogeneity and visual perception of age, health and attractiveness of male facial skin
Abstract
Background Visible facial skin condition in females is known to affect perception of age, health and attractiveness. Skin colour distribution in shape- and topography-standardized female faces, driven by localized melanin and haemoglobin, can account for up to twenty years of apparent age perception. Although this is corroborated by an ability to discern female age even in isolated, non-contextual skin images, a similar effect in the perception of male skin is yet to be demonstrated.
Objectives To investigate the effect of skin colour homogeneity and chromophore distribution on the visual perception of age, health and attractiveness of male facial skin.
Methods Cropped images from the cheeks of facial images of 160 Caucasian British men aged 10–70 years were blind-rated for age, health and attractiveness by a total of 308 participants. In addition, the homogeneity of skin images and corresponding eumelanin/oxyhaemoglobin concentration maps were analysed objectively using Haralick’s image segmentation algorithm.
Results Isolated skin images taken from the cheeks of younger males were judged as healthier and more attractive. Perception of age, health and attractiveness was strongly related to melanin and haemoglobin distribution, whereby more even distributions led to perception of younger age and greater health and attractiveness. The evenness of melanized features was a stronger cue for age perception, whereas haemoglobin distribution was associated more strongly with health and attractiveness perception.
Conclusions Male skin colour homogeneity, driven by melanin and haemoglobin distribution, influences perception of age, health and attractiveness.
... There is evidence that male skin colour homogeneity, driven by melanin and haemoglobin distribution, influences the perception of age, health and attractiveness [13], as proposed for women [1,3,14]. Perceived age, health and attractiveness of skin images, digitally isolated from the cheek area of male facial photographs, correlated with homogeneity measures of corresponding melanin and haemoglobin greyscale concentration maps. ...
... all from the Reading area of the U.K. (51°N 0°W). These images were collected as part of a large-scale project on male facial skin [13,15]. Digital images of male faces in front and profile view were obtained using a 6.2-megapixel digital single-lens reflex camera fitted with a Nikkor 45 mm 1 : 2.8P lens (Nikon Corporation, Tokyo, Japan). ...
... Consequently, it is unclear whether the perceptual thresholds reported for incremental change in female facial skin [4] apply also to that in males. With regard to the effect of facial skin colour homogeneity on the perception of age, health and attractiveness, our previous studies have highlighted perceptual sensitivity to variation in skin colour evenness (driven by melanin and haemoglobin distribution) in both male and female faces [1][2][3][4][5]13]. In fact, visible skin colouration alone (independent of skin surface topography) predicts the perception of male facial age, health and attractiveness [15]. ...
Objective:
Previous studies investigating the effects of skin surface topography and colouration cues on the perception of female faces reported a differential weighting for the perception of skin topography and colour evenness, where topography was a stronger visual cue for the perception of age, whereas skin colour evenness was a stronger visual cue for the perception of health. We extend these findings in a study of the effect of skin surface topography and colour evenness cues on the perceptions of facial age, health and attractiveness in males.
Methods:
Facial images of six men (aged 40 to 70 years), selected for co-expression of lines/wrinkles and discolouration, were manipulated digitally to create eight stimuli, namely, separate removal of these two features (a) on the forehead, (b) in the periorbital area, (c) on the cheeks and (d) across the entire face. Omnibus (within-face) pairwise combinations, including the original (unmodified) face, were presented to a total of 240 male and female judges, who selected the face they considered younger, healthier and more attractive.
Results:
Significant effects were detected for facial image choice, in response to skin feature manipulation. The combined removal of skin surface topography resulted in younger age perception compared with that seen with the removal of skin colouration cues, whereas the opposite pattern was found for health preference. No difference was detected for the perception of attractiveness. These perceptual effects were seen particularly on the forehead and cheeks. Removing skin topography cues (but not discolouration) in the periorbital area resulted in higher preferences for all three attributes.
Conclusion:
Skin surface topography and colouration cues affect the perception of age, health and attractiveness in men's faces. The combined removal of these features on the forehead, cheeks and in the periorbital area results in the most positive assessments.
... [1][2][3][4] On top of those overall facial shape, it has been revealed that appearances of facial skin, particularly skin color, and texture, significantly influence these human perceptions. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Through those researches, overall color (L*, a*, b*) on cheek and the evenness and homogeneity are tested and confirmed their correlation with human perception; however, some inconsistent observations were reported especially on redness (a*) due to different study design to evaluate those perception. In the study manipulating overall a* value on the same facial image, increased a* enhanced health appearance. ...
... These correlations observed with a* gradient surpassed those of other skin color attributes; L*, a*, b* mean, SD and color homogeneity which have been commonly utilized in prior studies for skin evaluation. [8][9][10]14 65 pixel of block size was used for homogeneity analysis on original VISIA images (3658 × 5472 pixel). ...
Background
Well‐being is commonly communicated across industries; however, experimental understanding how human perceive skin health and skin stresses are not sufficient.
Materials and Methods
Image analysis algorithm, a* gradient, was developed to evaluate spatial pattern and shape of red signal on skin. Human perception for skin health and stresses were compared with technical measurements in two visual perception studies.
Results
a* gradient correlated with perceived Inflamed Skin ( R = 0.73, p < 0.01), Stressed Skin ( R = 0.79, p < 0.01), Sensitive Skin ( R = 0.75, p < 0.01), Healthy Skin ( R = ‐0.83, p < 0.01), and Start Aging ( R = 0.75, p < 0.01).
Conclusions
Disordered spatial pattern of redness signal drives human perception of skin health, stress, and aging. This new skin index of redness signal shows higher correlation with those human perception than basal a* mean, unevenness of a*, and other conventional skin color attributes.
... Therefore, we adopted "irritated" as an impression word related to "aggression. " Furthermore, it has been reported that the age of a man can be predicted by skin color (Fink et al., 2012). Hence, we selected the term "old. ...
... It is believed that facial skin conditions have a large impact on impressions. It has been reported that humans are sensitive to changes in skin color and topography of the face, and may be able to detect slight changes in skin color (Matts et al., 2007;Samson et al., 2010b;Fink et al., 2012). Participants in this study may also have detected subtle differences in facial skin color before and after stress. ...
Introduction
Appearance plays an important role in maintaining a positive impression in social interactions. Psychological stress is known to have an adverse effect on facial skin, as indicated in previous studies. However, no study has investigated the negative effect of stress on facial impressions. Therefore, we aimed to investigate changes in impressions from facial images before and after mental stress tasks using an online survey.
Method
Thirteen Japanese men were recruited to have their facial photographs taken before and after undergoing a psychological stress task. We observed the physiological effects of an increased heart rate and decreased blood flow on the cheek skin. Four average facial images were created for each time point (control: “baseline;” stress: “0H,” “1H,” and “3H”) from their facial photographs. An online survey was conducted with 700 Japanese participants, who compared the “baseline” to other images and selected one of two options in each of the six questionnaire items of impressions.
Results
The results showed that the rate of participants who chose “baseline” was significantly lower in the items “looks tired,” “looks old,” and “looks irritated” and higher in “looks clean-cut” and “looks healthy” compared to other images created from photographs after the stress task (“0H,” “1H,” and “3H”).
Conclusion
These results suggest that psychological stress loading not only causes physiological changes in autonomic nervous activity and skin blood flow but also negatively impacts facial impressions for a few hours following a mild stress load.
... Increased facial skin lightness, redness, and yellowness, which approximately relate to the L*, a* and b* parameters of the CIELAB colour space respectively, have been claimed to enhance healthy appearance and therefore increase facial attractiveness [6,7]. Skin colour homogeneity, driven by the distribution of melanin and hemoglobin, has been found to have an influence on the perception of age, health and attractiveness, whereby a more even distribution of colour is associated with greater attractiveness [8,9]. ...
... Most research works that have investigated the impact of facial colour appearance on perceived attractiveness was conducted among Caucasian populations [3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Facial colour perception, however, may vary between different ethnic groups. ...
Previous research has shown the perceptual importance of skin tone appearance and how it contributes to perceived facial attractiveness, yet facial-colour perceptions may vary with different ethnic groups. This research was designed to explore the cross-cultural effects of the facial skin tone on perceived attractiveness between Caucasian (CA) and Chinese (CH) observers. 80 images of real human faces were used for facial attractiveness assessment by the two groups of observers using the categorical judgment method. The results showed overall similar preference but fine-scale differences in the perception of their own-ethnic facial images and other-ethnic facial images. Both groups of observers tended to use different criteria when judging the facial tone of different ethnic groups. Our findings show the aesthetic difference of different cultures in perceptions and underline the important role of ethnic differences with respect to skin tone preference.
... Cross-culturally, old age is perceived as starting at age 60 (Chan et al., 2012). Overall, older men and women are rated as less attractive than younger ones (Fink et al., 2012;Maestripieri et al., 2014;Teuscher & Teuscher, 2007). For women, however, ageing is more detrimental to perceived attractiveness than it is for men (Bailey, Gaulin, Agyei, & Gladue, 1994;Canetto, Kaminski, & Felicio, 1995;Deutsch, Zalenski, & Clark, 1986;Maestripieri et al., 2014). ...
... En la mayoría de las culturas, el comienzo de la edad avanzada se percibe alrededor de los 60 años (Chan et al., 2012). Por lo general, tanto los hombres como las mujeres de edad más avanzada se consideran menos atractivos que los de menor edad (Fink et al., 2012;Maestripieri et al., 2014;Teuscher & Teuscher, 2007). Sin embargo, para las mujeres, envejecer infuye de manera más negativa en su atractivo percibido que para los hombres (Bailey, Gaulin, Agyei, & Gladue, 1994;Canetto, Kaminski, & Felicio, 1995;Deutsch, Zalenski, & Clark, 1986;Maestripieri et al., 2014). ...
Based on evolutionary psychology, this paper investigates whether age preferences for ad models differ according to the model’s gender. The study is the first to experimentally document the double standard of ageing in consumer appraisals of advertisements. Fictitious advertisements were created for mineral water, chewing gum and energy bars, manipulating the ages of the models. Each participant was randomly placed in one of four conditions using a 2 (Model Age) × 2 (Model Gender) between-subjects experimental design and asked to rate the ads. As hypothesized, mature male models elicited a more favourable response than did young ones, whereas mature female models elicited a less favourable response than did young ones. The link between the model’s age and the attitude towards the ad was mediated by the model’s attractiveness. These preliminary results suggest that in choosing ad models, advertisers should take into consideration that mature male models and young female models are rated as attractive, eliciting favourable responses from potential consumers. Nonetheless, mature age can elicit the perception of trustworthiness of the model.
... In this study, the chronic effect of refined carbohydrate intake on attractiveness may have been confounded by several variables that were not considered here. For example, attractiveness was not controlled for skin color (redness, yellowness) and aspect (brightness, luminance), although these factors are known to impact health perception [68] and could thus impact attractiveness [69,70]. However, all facial photographs were taken indoors in the same technical room with fully controlled lighting conditions, thus reducing environmental variance for these traits. ...
The Western diet has undergone a massive switch since the second half of the 20th century,
with the massive increase of the consumption of refined carbohydrate associated with many
adverse health effects. The physiological mechanisms linked to this consumption, such as
hyperglycaemia and hyperinsulinemia, may impact non medical traits such as facial attrac-
tiveness. To explore this issue, the relationship between facial attractiveness and immediate
and chronic refined carbohydrate consumption estimated by glycemic load was studied for
104 French subjects. Facial attractiveness was assessed by opposite sex raters using pic-
tures taken two hours after a controlled breakfast. Chronic consumption was assessed con-
sidering three high glycemic risk meals: breakfast, afternoon snacking and between-meal
snacking. Immediate consumption of a high glycemic breakfast decreased facial attractive-
ness for men and women while controlling for several control variables, including energy
intake. Chronic refined carbohydrate consumption had different effects on attractiveness
depending on the meal and/or the sex. Chronic refined carbohydrate consumption, esti-
mated by the glycemic load, during the three studied meals reduced attractiveness, while a
high energy intake increased it. Nevertheless, the effect was reversed for men concerning
the afternoon snack, for which a high energy intake reduced attractiveness and a high glyce-
mic load increased it. These effects were maintained when potential confounders for facial
attractiveness were controlled such as age, age departure from actual age, masculinity/fem-
ininity (perceived and measured), BMI, physical activity, parental home ownership, smoking,
couple status, hormonal contraceptive use (for women), and facial hairiness (for men).
Results were possibly mediated by an increase in age appearance for women and a
decrease in perceived masculinity for men. The physiological differences between the three
meals studied and the interpretation of the results from an adaptive/maladaptive point of
view in relation to our new dietary environment are discussed.
... Facial redness in particular, has been shown to enhance perceived healthiness and attractiveness equally [4], possibly reflecting cardiovascular fitness of humans. Skin color homogeneity, driven by the distribution of skin chromophores melanin and hemoglobin, is positively associated with a younger perceived age and greater health and attractiveness [5][6][7]. ...
... Given the effects of attractiveness on real-world outcomes (e.g., election results [18], sentencing decisions [19]), we sought to examine whether the positive effect of makeup can be extended to male faces. Previous studies have found that skin homogeneity increases perceptions of attractiveness in male facial skin [20]. Previous research has also found that lower facial contrast makes faces appear more masculine [8]. ...
Makeup is commonly attributed with increasing attractiveness in female faces, but this effect has not been investigated in male faces. We therefore sought to examine whether the positive effect of makeup on attractiveness can be extended to male faces. Twenty men were photographed facing forward, under constant camera and lighting conditions, with neutral expressions, and closed mouths. Each man was photographed twice: once without any cosmetics applied and another time with subtle cosmetics applied by a professional makeup artist. Two hundred participants then rated those 40 images on attractiveness. The male faces were rated as higher in attractiveness when presented wearing makeup, compared to when presented not wearing makeup. This was true for both male and female raters, and whether analyzing the data using a by-participant or a by-face analysis. These results provide the first empirical evidence that makeup increases attractiveness in male faces. Following work on female faces, future research should examine the effect of makeup on several other traits in male faces. The market for male cosmetics products is growing and evolving and this study serves as an initial step in understanding the effect of makeup on the perceptions of male faces.
... Different facial colour characteristics have been assessed by previous work, including average facial skin colour [10][11][12][13][14][15] , local skin colour 16 , skin colour variation [17][18][19] , and facial colour contrast [20][21][22][23] , in terms of their role in facial preference judgements. With a few notable exceptions, these studies generally examined the role of a single colour characteristic in predicting facial preference. ...
Facial colour characteristics convey vital personal information and influence social interactions and mate choices as contributing factors to perceived beauty, health, and age. How various colour characteristics would affect facial preference and whether there is a cultural difference are not fully understood. Here, we provide a useful and repeatable methodology for skin colour research based on a realistic skin model to investigate the effect of various facial colour characteristics on facial preference and compare the role of colour predictors in Caucasian (CA) and Chinese (CN) populations. Our results show that, although the averaged skin colour of facial areas plays a limited role, together with colour variation and contrast, there are stronger links between colour and facial preference than previously revealed. We also find large cultural differences in facial colour perceptions. Interestingly, Chinese observers tend to rely more heavily on colour cues to judge facial preference than Caucasian observers.
... Facial redness in particular, has been shown to enhance perceived healthiness and attractiveness equally [4], possibly reflecting cardiovascular fitness of humans. Skin color homogeneity, driven by the distribution of skin chromophores melanin and hemoglobin, is positively associated with a younger perceived age and greater health and attractiveness [5][6][7]. ...
Facial skin coloration signals information about an individual and plays an important role in social interactions and mate choice, due its putative association with health, attractiveness, and age. Whether skin coloration as an evolutionary significant cue is universal or specific to a particular culture is unclear and current evidence on the universality of skin color as a cue to health and attractiveness are equivocal. The current study used 80 calibrated, high-resolution, non-manipulated images of real human faces, either of Chinese or western European descent, which were rated in terms of attractiveness, healthiness, and perceived age by 44 observers, 22 western European (13 male; mean age ± SD = 24.27 ± 5.30) and 22 Chinese (7 male; mean age ± SD = 26.05 ± 3.96) observers. To elucidate the associations between skin coloration and these perceptual ratings and whether these associations are modulated by observer or image ethnicity, a linear mixed-effect model was setup with skin lightness (L*; CIELAB), redness (a*) and yellowness (b*), observer and image ethnicity as independent variables and perceived attractiveness, healthiness, and estimated age as dependent variables. We found robust positive associations between facial skin lightness (L*) and attractiveness, healthiness, and youthfulness, but only when Chinese observers judge facial images of their own ethnicity. Observers of European descent, on the other hand, associated an increase in yellowness(b*) with greater attractiveness and healthiness in Chinese facial images. We find no evidence that facial redness is positively associated with these attributes; instead, an increase in redness (a*) is associated with an increase in the estimated age of European facial images. We conclude that observers of both ethnicities make use of skin color and lightness to rate attractiveness, healthiness, and perceived age, but to a lesser degree than previously thought. Furthermore, these coloration cues are not universal and are utilized differently within the Chinese and western European ethnic groups. Our study adds to the growing body of work demonstrating the importance of skin color manipulations within an evolutionary meaningful parameter space, ideally using realistic skin models based on physical parameters.
... With respect to differences in perception of smile images presented as hardcopy photographs or as digital images, it has been shown that the intrinsic properties of an image, such as color homogeneity, can alter the visual perception of attractiveness. [27] Therefore, if such intrinsic properties were more or less visible in a particular format, this might have introduced bias to explain the differences between the two formats. For instance, if the hue, tint, tone, and shade differed between digital and paper images, this might have given rise to different perceptions of aesthetics of tooth color, which are known to differ according to age and gender. ...
Objectives:
Despite the widespread of assessment of smile aesthetic perception in many areas, there has yet to be a direct comparison of digital and paper-based photographs for the assessment of smile aesthetics. Here we compared digital and paper-based photographs representing different smile aesthetic features using visual analog scale (VAS) scoring.
Materials and methods:
One hundred students were randomly recruited from a university campus. Participants were asked to record their perception of smile aesthetics via paper and digital-based platforms. The minimum clinically important difference between platforms was set at 15 mm. The percentage of participants who rated smile attractiveness worse on digital images was recorded. The paired one-tailed Student's t test was used to determine differences between digital and paper platforms, and Bland-Altman analysis and intraclass correlations (ICCs) were used to test for agreement between paper and digital photographs.
Results:
Ninety-nine subjects participated, 55 men (mean age = 22.05, standard deviation [SD] = 1.91) and 44 women (mean age 22.05, SD = 1.84). There were statistically significant differences between paper-based and digital photographs for all images except one (paired t test; P < 0.05). Digital ratings were lower than paper-based ratings for all images, and differences were clinically significant in four out of eight images. A high percentage of participants (50.5%-85.9%) rated smile attractiveness worse on digital images than on paper for all images. There was poor agreement between the two methods as assessed by ICCs and Bland-Altman analysis.
Conclusion:
Equivalence between paper and digital images for smile aesthetics cannot be assumed, and paper-based photographs may lead to clinically relevant overestimations of perceived attractiveness. As academic dentistry increasingly relies on digital imaging and sharing in the post-COVID-19 world, further validation of digital platforms for smile aesthetics assessment is warranted, and care should be taken when interpreting the results of studies assessing smile perception based on different platforms.
... And people would acutely detect signs of sickness from the face in an early phase after exposure to infectious stimuli and potentially contagious people (Axelsson et al., 2017). Previous works (Fink et al., 2011a(Fink et al., ,b, 2012 showed that perceived age and perceived health are correlated, however, facial cues used for the two perceptions aren't the same; health perception is influenced by facial adiposity and skin color while age perception is mostly predicted by skin aging signs. Although several facial cues have been already identified as relevant cues to judge apparent health or to detect a general sickness state; more research are still necessary to better understand the mechanisms behind the perception of health. ...
The use of computer simulation to understand how human faces age has been a growing area of research since decades. It has been applied to the search for missing children as well as to the fields of entertainment, cosmetics and dermatology research. Our objective is to elaborate a model for the age-related changes of facial cues which affect the perception of age, so that we may better predict them. In this work, a new framework to make a face age is proposed: Wrinkle Oriented Active Appearance Model. First, faces are decomposed in terms of appearance and shape using Active Appearance Model. In addition, wrinkles in each face are transformed in appearance and shape parameters.A new effective way to model the distribution of wrinkle parameters in a face is introduced. Finally, it is shown that artificially aged faces produced by the system better influence age perception than those produced by two other systems. This framework is a first step in the construction of a more accurate facial aging system. In addition, a new health estimation system using a convolutional neural network is introduced. This system is able to estimate how a face is perceived in terms of health by humans. It is shown how this tool reacts in the same way as health perception by humans. Finally, the impact of specific facial features on health perception that have never been studied before is etablished.
... Through big data analysis, evaluation of face in real society and literature research, we found that the facial skin appearance also affected the human perception of attractiveness. Since many researchers have proposed a connection between facial attractiveness and healthful qualities, the health of facial skin might be an appearance characteristic that positively influences facial attractiveness evaluation (Fink et al. 2001(Fink et al. , 2012Foo et al. 2017;Tan et al. 2018). At the same time, skin colour and skin texture are important factors that reflect the health of facial skin (Jones et al. 2004;Fink et al. 2006;Stephen et al. 2012). ...
Facial attractiveness is an important research direction of genetic psychology and cognitive psychology, and its results are significant for the study of face evolution and human evolution. However, previous studies have not put forward a comprehensive evaluation system of facial attractiveness. Traditionally, the establishment of facial attractiveness evaluation system was based on facial geometric features, without facial skin features. In this paper, combined with big data analysis, evaluation of face in real society and literature research, we found that skin also have a significant impact on facial attractiveness, because skin could reflect age, wrinkles and healthful qualities, thus affected the human perception of facial attractiveness. Therefore, we propose a comprehensive and novel facial attractiveness evaluation system based on face shape structural features, facial structure features and skin texture feature. In order to apply face shape structural features to the evaluation of facial attractiveness, the classification of face shape is the first step. Face image dataset is divided according to face shape, and then facial structure features and skin texture features that represent facial attractiveness are extracted and fused. The machine learning algorithm with the best prediction performance is selected in the face shape structural subsets to predict facial attractiveness. Experimental results show that the facial attractiveness evaluation performance can be improved by the method based on classification of face shape and multi-features fusion, the facial attractiveness scores obtained by the proposed system correlates better with human ratings. Our evaluation system can help people project their cognition of facial attractiveness into artificial agents they interact with.
... However, while proportions can be evaluated mainly from a 3D point of view, beauty assessment is more complex; indeed, facial expression [41] and all elements perceivable with color information cannot be ignored [42]. Also, 2D information has been used to manipulate textures [43], figuring out that not only attractiveness, but also other individual characteristics, such as age and health, are differently perceived because of colors cues [44,45]. Skin is the most studied element in terms of color and texture, because of the wide percentage of facial surface which recovers [46][47][48], and it has been proved that factors such as makeup and photo quality have a strong influence on attractiveness [49]. ...
Common sense usually considers the assessment of female human attractiveness to be subjective. Nevertheless, in the past decades, several studies and experiments showed that an objective component in beauty assessment exists and can be strictly related, even if it does not match, with proportions of features. Proportions can be studied through analysis of the face, which relies on landmarks, i.e., specific points on the facial surface, which are shared by everyone, and measurements between them. In this work, several measures have been gathered from studies in the literature considering datasets of beautiful women to build a set of measures that can be defined as suggestive of female attractiveness. The resulting set consists of 29 measures applied to a public dataset, the Bosphorus database, whose faces have been both analyzed by the developed methodology based on the expanded set of measures and judged by human observers. Results show that the set of chosen measures is significant in terms of attractiveness evaluation, confirming the key role of proportions in beauty assessment; furthermore, the sorting of identified measures has been performed to identify the most significant canons involved in the evaluation.
... The majority of papers study facial beauty related to sexual attractiveness (for reviews, see Thornhill and Gangestad, 1999;Fink and Penton-Voak, 2002;Kościński, 2007). In this context, the best predictors for facial attractiveness are averageness (Jones and Hill, 1993;Rhodes and Tremewan, 1996;Komori et al., 2009;Zhang et al., 2011), symmetry (Grammer and Thornhill, 1994;Perrett et al., 1999;Scheib et al., 1999), sexual dimorphism (Perrett et al., 1998;Valenzano et al., 2006), smoothness of skin texture and color (Fink et al., 2001(Fink et al., , 2006(Fink et al., , 2012Jones et al., 2004;Matts et al., 2007) and an absence of visible defects such as scars (Rankin and Borah, 2003) or congenital face clefts (Tobiasen, 1987). ...
The aspects of facial attractiveness have been widely studied, especially within the context of evolutionary psychology, which proposes that aesthetic judgements of human faces are shaped by biologically based standards of beauty reflecting the mate quality. However, the faces of primates, who are very similar to us yet still considered non-human, remain neglected. In this paper, we aimed to study the facial attractiveness of non-human primates as judged by human respondents. We asked 286 Czech respondents to score photos of 107 primate species according to their perceived “beauty.” Then, we analyzed factors affecting the scores including morphology, colors, and human-likeness. We found that the three main primate groups were each scored using different cues. The proportions of inner facial features and distinctiveness are cues widely reported to affect human facial attractiveness. Interestingly, we found that these factors also affected the attractiveness scores of primate faces, but only within the Catarrhines, i.e., the primate group most similar to humans. Within this group, human-likeness positively affected the attractiveness scores, and facial extremities such as a prolonged nose or exaggerated cheeks were considered the least attractive. On the contrary, the least human-like prosimians were scored as the most attractive group. The results are discussed in the context of the “uncanny valley,” the widely discussed empirical rule.
... cues (Jones et al. 2004), likely because uneven skin tone is a marker of aging and exposure to environmental stressors (e.g., disease; Matts and Fink 2010;Samson et al. 2011). In fact, faces with more homogenous skin color are perceived as younger, more attractive, and healthier than faces with less homogeneous color (Fink et al. 2006(Fink et al. , 2012. Correspondingly, skin blood perfusion (i.e., red skin coloration) signals cardiovascular health and superior blood oxygenation, as well as, for women, higher levels of circulating estrogen (Charkoudian et al. 1999;Thornton 2002), whereas decreased skin blood perfusion has been linked to poor health (e.g., Muhe et al. 1999Muhe et al. , 2000. ...
The Environmental Security Hypothesis (ESH) proposes that an individual’s mate preferences should shift depending on how secure they perceive their surroundings to be. Here, we extend previous work by leading participants to believe they would be required to handle either a snake (threat condition) or tame rabbit (control condition) and measuring various aspects of mate selection. People in the threat condition reported a greater preference for bodies with a higher proportion of muscle versus fat. Women in the threat condition, but not men, reported a greater preference for more masculine-shaped faces and lower self-perceived mate value. Men in the threat condition, but not women, reported a significantly lower preference for Status-Resources and Warmth-Trustworthiness partner traits, and lower self-perceived social status. Finally, although we did not fully replicate previous findings with respect to short-term mating interest in women, men in the threat condition reported both a more favorable attitude towards short-term mating and a less favorable attitude towards long-term mating. Results are interpreted in line with a context-flexible view of psychological adaptations influencing human mate selection processes.
... Skin color, tone and evenness, pigmentation as well as skin surface characteristics are signs of youth and age. For the self-and outside perception, for communication, social acceptance and for the general wellbeing, the look of the skin is crucial [1][2][3] . Probably, since the beginning of man, skin cleansing (bathing, washing, scraping, shaving, etc.) and various approaches of beautifying the skin have been part of human life -from birth to death. ...
The industry offers a vast armamentarium of skin care products (SCP) to cleanse the skin; to reduce/eliminate unpleasant skin symptoms; to restore, reinforce, fortify and protect undamaged, vulnerable or damaged skin; and to provide a pleasant skin and body feel. Skin care products are readily available and their promotions with a variety of tall claims are omnipresent. This text discusses the various interpretations of skin care, the diversity of its comprehensions and the various groups of receivers and their needs for skin care. Skin care is part of our daily routines, the information on the effects of SCP is omnipresent and the purchase of SCP seems straightforward. However, the true essence of SCP remains concealed to many. This is mainly due to that fact that the "physico-chemical anatomy," the nomenclature and the regulatory classification of SCP as well as the role and the significance of active and inactive ingredients within these products are not well understood. This text addresses the different views, interpretations and comprehensions. The final part highlights the current challenges with SCP and gives an outlook on how to improve our mutual understanding of SCP.
... Previous studies on facial correlates of attractiveness and healthy appearance have tended to focus on facial shape (Said & Todorov, 2011;Rhodes et al., 2001;Fink, Grammer, & Matts, 2006). More recently, however, studies have begun to highlight the importance of skin texture and colour Fink, Matts, D'Emiliano, Bunse, Weege, Röder, et al., 2012;Stephen et al., 2011). ...
Facial skin texture and colour play an important role in observers' judgments of apparent health and have been linked to aspects of physiological health, including fitness, immunity and fertility. However, most studies have focused on Caucasian populations. Here, we report two studies that investigate the contribution of skin texture and colour to the apparent health of Malaysian Chinese faces. In Study 1, homogenous skin texture, as measured by wavelet analysis, was found to positively predict ratings of apparent health of Asian faces. In study 2, homogenous skin texture and increased skin yellowness positively predicted rated health of Malaysian Chinese faces. This finding suggests that skin condition serves as an important cue for subjective judgements of health in Malaysian Chinese faces
... Skin condition is associated with attractiveness and healthy appearance, with skin color (Stephen et al., 2009a(Stephen et al., ,b, 2012Scott et al., 2010;Coetzee et al., 2012) and skin color distribution (Fink et al., 2006(Fink et al., , 2012Matts et al., 2007;Coetzee et al., 2012) influencing perceptions of health and attractiveness. Further, healthy appearing skin color is associated with aspects of real health such as a diet rich in antioxidant carotenoids (Stephen et al., 2011;Whitehead et al., 2012) and an even skin color distribution is associated with reduced damage by ultraviolet light (Matts and Fink, 2010), suggesting that skin appearance is related to both healthy/attractive appearance and aspects of real health. ...
Facial cues contribute to attractiveness, including shape cues such as symmetry, averageness, and sexual dimorphism. These cues may represent cues to objective aspects of physiological health, thereby conferring an evolutionary advantage to individuals who find them attractive. The link between facial cues and aspects of physiological health is therefore central to evolutionary explanations of attractiveness. Previously, studies linking facial cues to aspects of physiological health have been infrequent, have had mixed results, and have tended to focus on individual facial cues in isolation. Geometric morphometric methodology (GMM) allows a bottom–up approach to identifying shape correlates of aspects of physiological health. Here, we apply GMM to facial shape data, producing models that successfully predict aspects of physiological health in 272 Asian, African, and Caucasian faces – percentage body fat (21.0% of variance explained), body mass index (BMI; 31.9%) and blood pressure (BP; 21.3%). Models successfully predict percentage body fat and blood pressure even when controlling for BMI, suggesting that they are not simply measuring body size. Predicted values of BMI and BP, but not percentage body fat, correlate with health ratings. When asked to manipulate the shape of faces along the physiological health variable axes (as determined by the models), participants reduced predicted BMI, body fat and (marginally) BP, suggesting that facial shape provides a valid cue to aspects of physiological health.
... One may speculate that such selection pressure has acted more strongly on men than on women (which may explain higher male assessments of young skin in the Maasai). However, it is known from investigation of Western samples that facial skin color distribution plays a role in both men and women, in terms of age, health, and attractiveness perceptions (Fink et al., 2006(Fink et al., , 2012Matts et al., 2007). Whether women of preindustrialized societies are sensitive to variation in male facial skin color distribution needs to be tested. ...
In women with lightly pigmented skin in particular, facial skin color homogeneity decreases with age, primarily due to chronic exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR), leading to a decrease in perceived health and attractiveness. Perception of female skin may be influenced by continuous exposure to, and thus familiarity with, age-related changes in visible skin condition in a given society. Men and women of two traditional societies, the Maasai (Tanzania) and the Tsimane’ (Bolivia), unfamiliar with lighter colored skin, judged images of British women’s facial skin for age, health, and attractiveness. In both samples, images with homogeneous skin color (from the cheeks of younger women) were judged to be younger and healthier and received a stronger preference than corresponding images with heterogeneous skin color (from older women). We suggest that (i) human sensitivity for quality-related information from facial skin color distribution is universal and independent of any known age-dependent variation in skin in a given population and (ii) skin discoloration is universally associated with less positive judgment.
... 5 Studies have demonstrated that skin surface topography and skin coloration affect the perception of facial age, health, and attractiveness in both men and women. 5,6 One of the primary skin aging processes, resulting in loss of skin elasticity and turgidity, consists of decreased fibroblasts activity with reduction in the biosynthesis of dermal extracellular matrix components and HA. 7,8 HA is a polysaccharide capable of maintaining the correct moisturization of tissues and inducing optimal conditions for the proliferation of dermal cells. ...
Background:
An injectable medical device containing stable hybrid cooperative complexes of high- and low-molecular-weight hyaluronic acid (HA) has been developed with characteristics suited for a global improvement of facial esthetics.
Objective:
To evaluate the HA product performance in improving some key facial esthetic features. The study employed clinical scales, subjective evaluations, and facial skin objective measurements.
Methods:
A single Italian site treated 64 female subjects aged 38-60 years, with injections at five predetermined points, on each side of the face, with a 4-week time lapse between the first and the second product administration. Subjects were evaluated after 4, 8, 12, and 16 weeks, using validated clinical scales, subjective evaluation, and objective quantitative outcome measures. Assessment of esthetic results included photographic documentation.
Results:
Both the clinical and subjective assessments, and the majority of objective instrumental parameters indicated an improvement throughout the study and were already significant at week 4 or 8 and were still significant at week 16 (3 months after the second treatment). Minor and temporary local skin reactions were observed in 23% of subjects at the site of the injections, and the global judgment on tolerability was good or excellent, both in the investigators' opinion and volunteers' self-evaluation.
Conclusion:
Both subjective and objective improvement of the facial parameters was consistent with the bio-remodeling purpose, and persistent and still statistically significant at the end of the study. The tolerability and safety profile of the product were judged good or excellent both by investigators and volunteers. This study supports the claim for bio-remodeling of these stable hybrid cooperative complexes of low- and high-molecular-weight HA.
... Skin coloration and color homogeneity are markers of aging and exposure to environmental stressors (e.g., chronic sun exposure, disease) and are associated with a number of health outcomes Samson et al. 2010). Faces manipulated to have more homogenous skin color distribution are perceived as younger, more attractive, and healthier than faces with less homogeneous color distribution in both women (Fink et al. 2006) and men (Fink et al. 2012). Furthermore, cropped images of facial skin with more homogenous color are rated higher on attractiveness, youthfulness, and health than other images (Jones et al. 2004;Matts et al. 2007). ...
Sexual dimorphism, symmetry, and coloration in human faces putatively signal information relevant to mate selection and reproduction. Although the independent contributions of these characteristics to judgments of attractiveness are well established, relatively few studies have examined whether individuals prioritize certain features over others. Here, participants (N = 542, 315 female) ranked six sets of facial photographs (3 male, 3 female) by their preference for starting long- and short-termromantic relationships with each person depicted. Composite-based digital transformations were applied such that each image set contained 11 different versions of the same identity. Each photograph in each image set had a unique combination of three traits: sexual dimorphism, symmetry, and color cues to health. Using conjoint analysis to evaluate participants’ ranking decisions, we found that participants prioritized cues to sexual dimorphism over symmetry and color cues to health. Sexual dimorphism was also found to be relatively more important for the evaluation of male faces than for female faces, whereas symmetry and color cues to health were relatively more important for the evaluation of female faces than for male faces. Symmetry and color cues to health were more important for long-term versus short-term evaluations for female faces, but not male faces. Analyses of utility estimates reveal that our data are consistent with research showing that preferences for facial masculinity and femininity in male and female faces vary according to relationship context. These findings are interpreted in the context of previous work examining the influence of these facial attributes on romantic partner perception.
... Despite the variation in underlying skin tones, homogeneity of skin color is correlated with increased attractiveness and appearance of healthiness in every culture examined [59,60]. People who view a cropped image of a cheek were able to accurately judge age, based on homogeneity of skin tone [61]. ...
Nothing in Beauty Makes Sense Except in Light of the Brain. This paper reviews how the brain perceives faces and bodies for appearance characteristics, and then values these for status, alliances, and reproductive success.
Background
Acne negatively affects quality of life, however quality‐of‐life scores poorly correlate with disease severity scores. Previous research demonstrated existence of facial areas in which skin lesions have greater impact on gaze patterns. Therefore, we hypothesized that anatomical variants of acne may be perceived differently.
Objectives
The aim was to investigate effect of anatomical variants of acne on natural gaze patterns and resulting impact on social perception of acne patients.
Methods
We tracked eye movements of participants viewing neutral and emotional faces with acne. Images were rated for acne‐related visual disturbance, and emotional faces were rated for valence intensity. Respondents of an online survey were asked to rate their perception of pictured individuals' personality traits.
Results
All faces with acne were perceived as less attractive and received poorer personality judgements with mid‐facial acne presenting smallest deviation from healthy faces. T‐zone and mixed acne exhibited the least significant difference in respondents gaze behaviour pattern from each other. In addition, there was no significant difference in respondents' grading of acne visual disturbance or ratings for attractiveness, success and trustworthiness. U‐zone adult female acne was rated as the most visually disturbing and received the lowest scores for attractiveness. Happy faces with adult female acne were rated as less happy compared to other acne variants and clear‐skin faces.
Conclusions
Anatomic variants of acne have a distinct impact on gaze patterns and social perception. Adult female acne has the strongest negative effect on recognition of positive emotions in affected individuals, attractiveness ratings and forming social impressions. If perioral acne lesions are absent, frontal lesions determine impact of acne on social perception irrespective of the presence of mid‐facial lesions. This perceptive hierarchy should be taken into consideration while deciding treatment goals in acne patients, prioritizing achieving remission in perioral and frontal area.
Background: Skin is exposed to ultraviolet radiation (UV) and air pollution, and recent works have demonstrated that these factors have additive effects in the disturbance of skin homeostasis. Nuclear-factor-erythroid-2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) and aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) appear to be appropriate targets in the management of combined environmental stressors. The protective effects of silymarin (SM), an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory complex of flavonoids, were evaluated. Methods: Reactive oxygen species (ROS) and interleukin 1-alpha (IL-1a) were quantified in UV+urban-dust-stressed reconstructed human epidermis (RHE) treated with SM. A gene expression study was conducted on targets related to AHR and Nrf2. SM agonistic activity on cannabinoid receptor type 2 (CB2R) was evaluated on mast cells. The clinical study quantified the performance of SM and cannabidiol (CBD) in skin exposed to solar radiation and air pollution. Results: SM decreased morphological alterations, ROS, and IL-1a in UV+urban-dust-stressed RHE. AHR- and Nrf2-related genes were upregulated, which control the antioxidant effector and barrier function. Interleukin 8 gene expression was decreased. The clinical study confirmed SM improved the homogeneity and perceived well-being of urban skins exposed to UV, outperforming CBD. SM activated CB2R and the release of β-endorphin from mast cells. Conclusions: SM provides protection of skin from oxidative stress and inflammation caused by two major factors of exposome and appears mediated by AHR-Nrf2. SM activation of CB2R is opening a new understanding of SM’s anti-inflammatory properties.
Various facial colour cues were identified as valid predictors of facial attractiveness, yet the conventional univariate approach has simplified the complex nature of attractiveness judgement for real human faces. Predicting attractiveness from colour cues is difficult due to the high number of candidate variables and their inherent correlations. Using datasets from Chinese subjects, this study proposed a novel analytic framework for modelling attractiveness from various colour characteristics. One hundred images of real human faces were used in experiments and an extensive set of 65 colour features were extracted. Two separate attractiveness evaluation sets of data were collected through psychophysical experiments in the UK and China as training and testing datasets, respectively. Eight multivariate regression strategies were compared for their predictive accuracy and simplicity. The proposed methodology achieved a comprehensive assessment of diverse facial colour features and their role in attractiveness judgements of real faces; improved the predictive accuracy (the best-fit model achieved an out-of-sample accuracy of 0.66 on a 7-point scale) and significantly mitigated the issue of model overfitting; and effectively simplified the model and identified the most important colour features. It can serve as a useful and repeatable analytic tool for future research on facial impression modelling using high-dimensional datasets.
Background
Skin glow is a subcomponent of skin quality. It has become entrenched in the cosmeceuticals and aesthetics lexicons as a synonym for health and youth, but is not well‐defined as a scientific metric.
Aims
To examine the concept of skin glow and determine if it is an objective concept that can be defined and quantified.
Methods
Literature review was used to develop a survey on current concepts relating to skin quality. The survey results were analyzed descriptively and presented to a focus group comprising five dermatologists and four aesthetic physicians. This group then discussed the concept of skin glow, how to define it and what metrics could be used to assess it.
Results
Surveyed practitioners ( n = 38) ranked skin quality as the fourth most important factor related to a person's overall aesthetic first impression. Almost all (95%) respondents reported routinely assessing skin quality, citing serial photography (83%), and visual inspection (67%) as the main means of achieving this. The focus group defined skin glow as even reflectance from an unaffected papillary and reticular dermal collagen layer, which is created only when skin does not exhibit any characteristics that detract from this even reflectance. Due to its complexity, the focus group proposed a hierarchal framework for assessment, encompassing patient self‐rating, practitioner severity rating, and supplemental use of validated measurement devices.
Conclusions
Skin glow can be defined and quantified. More work is warranted to develop a practical skin glow assessment tool suitable for use in the clinic setting.
Skin cancer continues to increase in incidence year‐on‐year and represents the most common form of cancer across the globe. Every human undergoes premature ageing, particularly on the face, neck and hands. Both phenomena are driven primarily by chronic, daily exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR). While sunscreen products play a primary role in the prevention of UVR skin damage, the active ingredients, i.e., UVR filters, are facing unprecedented challenges in the coming 10 years and their future is by no means certain. This article, therefore, reviews afresh the facts around photoprotection and the role of sunscreen products in the prevention of acute (sunburn) and chronic (cancer, photoageing) skin damage and compares/contrasts these with various emerging questions and opinions around UVR filter technology. We present a passionate defence of this remarkable technology, but also attempt to imagine a world without it.
Attractiveness is a proposed universal cue to overall biological quality. Nonetheless, local raters and raters of the same ethnicity may be more accurate in assessing the cues for attractiveness than distant and unfamiliar raters. Shared ethnicity and shared environment may both affect rating accuracy: our aim was to compare their relative influence. Therefore, we photographed young Vietnamese participants (N = 93, 33 women) from Hanoi, Vietnam. The photographs were rated by Czechs, Asian Vietnamese, and Czech Vietnamese (raters of Vietnamese origin who lived in Czechia for all or most of their life). Using geometric morphometrics, we measured facial shape cues to biological quality: averageness, asymmetry, and sexual dimorphism. We expected that Vietnamese raters residing in Czechia and Vietnam would agree on perceived attractiveness and use shape-related facial cues to biological quality better than Czech European raters, who are less familiar with East Asians. Surprisingly, mixed-effect models and post hoc comparisons identified no major cross-group differences in attributed attractiveness and path analyses revealed that the three groups based their rating on shape-related characteristics in a similar way. However, despite the considerable cross-cultural agreement regarding perceived attractiveness, Czech European raters associated attractiveness with facial shape averageness significantly more than Vietnamese raters.
Previous studies suggested that (1) facial attractiveness perception can be increased with facial skin homogeneity improving; and (2) human’s facial change detection increases along with facial skin homogeneity increases. However, it’s unknown whether a face can be perceived prettier than it did before while still being considered as physically the same. It is possible that these two kinds of cognitive-aesthetic processing may have separate mathematical functions in psychophysical studies. In other words, human’s facial attractiveness differentiation may be more sensitive than facial change detection. In this current study, we explored the above questions. Using three types of psychophysical techniques to manipulate facial skin homogeneity, we measured how participants’ sensitivity to facial skin homogeneity and attractiveness change. Results showed a linear function curve for facial physical change detection and a logarithmic function curve was drawn in the forced-choice technique, which was the most sensitive one, indicating that participants can judge a face prettier than before without being aware of it has physically changed. Besides, two linear function curves were shown in the same/different technique and a rating technique. Taken together, this current study revealed that facial attractiveness can be enhanced and discriminated by improving facial skin homogeneity, without being realized by people with conscious awareness that the face has been changed.
Objective:
Ideal complexion is a perceptual skin quality that is strongly influenced by cultural and ethnic background. The objectives of this study are to quantitatively characterize skin ideal complexion based on clinical image cues and to compare the perceptions of ideal complexion among multiple ethnicities.
Methods:
Facial images of Indian, Chinese, Caucasian and Latino females collected using VISIA®-CR were presented to naïve panels of the same ethnicity following a two-alternative forced choice design and responses on skin "ideal complexion" were obtained from 336 panelists. Panel perception was transformed logistically (d') and projected onto a continuum (ω) following Bradley-Terry model. Image cues including skin color and unevenness, skin shine and surface smoothness, and pigmentary blotches and spots were computed using image analysis and their relationship with ω were evaluated through multiple regression analysis. A novel skin index namely ideal complexion score (ICS) was developed and correlated against age using linear regression. Finally, ICS was applied to evaluate treatment efficacy of a skin brightening kit on 35 female Caucasian subjects.
Results:
Panel perception d' showed statistically significant (p < 0.05) correlation with the contrast of image cues for all ethnic panels (R2 = 0.74, 0.76, 0.62 and 0.46 for Indian, Chinese, Caucasian and Latino respectively) and strong correlations between perception ω and linear combinations of image cues were observed (R2 > 0.88 for all). Main effects of facial image visual cues on ideal complexion were compared: contrast of skin redness and pigmented spots and visual smoothness were important in determining ICS for all ethnicities; skin color unevenness was more pronounced for Indian and Caucasian; skin lightness was important for Indian and Chinese; skin shine was critical for Chinese and Latino; and skin hue angle ranked higher for Caucasian. Correlations between ICS and age were observed for Indian and Caucasian (R2 = 0.55) in which ICS decreased as age increased. Twenty-nine percent improvement on ICS was observed after 12 weeks' treatment using the brightening kit compared to the baseline.
Conclusion:
Mathematical models were successfully established to describe subjective perception towards skin ideal complexion based on objectively measured image cues for multiple ethnicities.
Facial colour characteristics convey vital personal information and influence social interactions and mate choices as contributing factors to perceived beauty, health, and age. How various colour characteristics affect facial preference and whether there are cultural differences are not fully understood. Here, we provide a useful and repeatable methodology for skin colour research based on a realistic skin model to investigate the effect of various facial colour characteristics on facial preference and compare the role of colour predictors in Caucasian (CA) and Chinese (CN) samples. Our results show that, although the average skin colour of facial areas plays a limited role, together with colour variation and contrast, there are stronger links between colour and facial preference than previously revealed. We also find large cultural differences in facial colour perceptions; Chinese observers tend to rely more heavily on colour and lightness cues to judge facial preference than Caucasian observers.
Biosocial impact of facial dominance and sex-typicality is well-evidenced in various human groups. It remains unclear, though, whether perceived sex-typicality and dominance can be consistently predicted from sexually dimorphic facial features across populations. Using a combination of multidimensional Bayesian approach and geometric morphometrics, we explored associations between perceived dominance, perceived sex-typicality, measured sexual shape dimorphism, and skin colour in a European and an African population. Unlike previous studies, we investigated the effect of facial variation due to shape separately from variation due to visual cues not related to shape in natural nonmanipulated stimuli. In men, perceived masculinity was associated with perceived
dominance in both populations. In European women higher perceived femininity was, surprisingly, likewise positively associated with perceived dominance. Both shape and non-shape components participate in the constitution of facial sex-typicality and dominance. Skin colour predicted perceived sex-typicality in Africans but not in Europeans. Members of each population probably use different cues to assess sex-typicality and dominance. Using our methods, we found no universal sexually dimorphic scale predicting human perception of sex-typicality and dominance. Unidimensional understanding of sex-typicality thus seems problematic and should be applied with cautions when studying perceived sex-typicality and its correlates.
Facial agingFacial aging is a complex process, and the changes in the inner layers of the skin will affect how the light scatters from the skin. To observe whether a light scatteringLight scattering model parameter is suitable to be used forAge classification age classification/estimation, this study investigated and analyzed the relationship between the parameter of an analytical-based light scatteringLight scattering model and skins of various ages using photometryPhotometry method. Multiple models are used to investigate and compare the relationship between the model parameters and the subject’s age. The results show that all of the models’ roughness parameter representation has a significant positive correlation with age (), making it a suitable choice to be made as a feature for estimating/classifying age. This study proves that the parameter(s) for an analytical-based light scatteringLight scattering model can be used as an alternative method for estimating/classifying a person’s age, provided that we know the light incidence and reflectance angles. In the future, this method can be used to work with other age extractors/estimators/classifiers, for the purpose of designing a more robustAge classification age estimation/classification method.
Objective
To determine the respective weights of certain facial signs on the assessment of perceived age, tired‐look and healthy glow on Chinese men of different ages.
Material and Methods
Photographs were taken of the faces of 420 Chinese men of different ages, under standardized conditions. These photographs allowed to focus and define 15 facial signs, which were then graded by 15 experts and dermatologists, using standardized scales provided by a reference Skin Aging Atlas.
The facial signs were dispatched into 5 clusters, namely Wrinkles/Texture, Ptosis/Sagging, Pigmentation disorders, Vascular disorders and Cheek skin pores.
A naïve panel, composed of 80 Chinese women, of similar age range were asked, when viewing full face photographs, to: i) attribute on a 0–10 scale their perception of both the tired‐look and healthy glow aspects and ii) estimate the age of the subject.
Results
With the exception of Vascular disorders, the severity of all 4 clusters increased with age, although at different rates. The Ptosis/Sagging or Pigmentation disorders showed a rather regular progression. Although perceived ages and real ages were found to be closely correlated, the vast majority of subjects were judged older by 2 to 10 years. The changes in facial signs (and their related clusters) were significantly correlated with perceived age, with the exceptions of skin spots density and cheek skin pores. Although the aspects of tired‐look and healthy glow were logically found to be anti‐correlated, tired‐look was more statistically associated with perceived age for the five clusters. Signs of eye contour appear to be closely correlated with the perception of a tired‐look.
Conclusion
Within facial clinical clusters, Wrinkles/Texture and Ptosis/Sagging are major factors in the assessment of perceived age in Chinese men. Tired‐look appears to be strongly associated with perceived age.
Facial aging research concerns the way aging affects a person's appearance and how we can use knowledge of this process. It has been an interesting topic for fields such as human perception, pattern recognition, computer vision, graphics, and skin optics. Most studies acknowledge that facial appearance changes with age. As a person grows older, certain characteristics of their skin will change, notably the light scattering. If a model is used to predict a person's skin light scattering, its parameter(s) may be used to predict the age of its owner. The aim of this thesis is to observe whether a light scattering model parameter is suitable to be used as an age estimator/classifier. This is done by investigating and analyzing the relationship between the parameter of an analytical-based light scattering model and skins of various ages (henceforth, this will be called "the parameter-age test"). Thus, for this parameter-age test, new laminar light scattering models are introduced, which include an absorption term that is defined using the rule of light energy conservation (reflectance, transmission, and absorption). Multiple models (including the new models) are used to investigate the relationship between the model parameters and the subject's age. The final results show that all of the models' roughness parameters have the significant positive correlation with age (p < 0.05), making it a suitable parameter to be used for estimating/classifying age. This has been proven in this thesis age classification experiment using the estimated roughness parameters. In the end, this thesis has shown that the parameter(s) for an analytical-based light scattering model can be used as an alternative method for estimating/classifying a person's age. Moreover, it can also be used to work with other age extractor/estimator/classifier, for the purpose of designing a more robust age estimation/classification method. 3 Contents Abstract 3 Abbreviations and Symbols 7
Objective:
These were two folds: At first, to develop an automatic grading system specifically dedicated to some facial signs of men, similarly to the one previously validated on women of different ethnic ancestry. Second, to assess its potential in detecting and grading the possible impacts of a severe aerial urban pollution on some facial signs of Chinese men.
Methods:
In both studies, selfies images were obtained from differently aged men. Nine facial signs were automatically graded through a specific A.I-based algorithm and clinically assessed by a panel of experts and dermatologists. Selfies pictures were taken from individual smartphones of variable optical properties. First study, designed for developing an automatic grading system, involved three comparable cohorts of men from three different regional ancestries (African, Asian, Caucasian, 110 each) the selfies images of which were acquired under four different lighting conditions. As a second use case study, the facial signs of two cohorts of Chinese men (101 and 100, each), differently aged, regularly exposed to very different aerial urban pollution conditions (UP) were analyzed by the same algorithm, selfies being taken under only one lighting condition.
Results:
- The new automatic grading system of facial signs suits well to men, showing comparable results than that the one dedicated to women and provides data in close agreement with experts' assessments. - In both cases (expert's or automatic methodology), the accuracy of the scores appeared ethnic-dependent. - The applied case confirmed previous results obtained clinically, i.e. that many facial signs were found of an increased severity among men exposed to a severe urban pollution, as compared to those living in a less polluted city. - In both studies, statistical agreements between the automatic grading system and expert's assessments were reached. In some facial signs, the automatic grading system seems offering a slightly better accuracy than the assessments made by the experts.
Conclusion:
Apart from some minor limitations, this A.I-based automatic grading system, free from human intervention, performed as well as the one previously developed in women, in close agreement with expert's assessments. In epidemiological studies, this system offers an easy, fast, affordable and confidential approach in the detection and quantification of male facial signs.
Research on the perception of faces typically assumes that there are some universal values of attractiveness which are shared across individuals and cultures. The perception of attractiveness may, however, vary across cultures due to local differences in both facial morphology and standards of beauty. To examine cross-cultural consensus in the ratings of attractiveness, we presented a set of 120 non-manipulated photographs of Czech faces to ten samples of raters from both European (Czech Republic, Estonia, Sweden, Romania, Turkey, Portugal) and non-European countries (Brazil, India, Cameroon, Namibia). We examined the relative contribution of three facial markers (sexual shape dimorphism, averageness, fluctuating asymmetry) to the perception of attractiveness as well as the possible influence of eye color, which is a locally specific trait. In general, we found that both male and female faces which were closer to the average and more feminine in shape were regarded as more attractive, while fluctuating asymmetry had no effect. Despite a high cross-cultural consensus on attractiveness standards, significant differences in the perception of attractiveness seem to be related to the level of socio-economic development (as measured by the Human Development Index, HDI). Attractiveness ratings by raters from low-HDI countries (India, Cameroon, Namibia) converged less with ratings from Czech Republic than ratings from high-HDI countries (European countries and Brazil). With respect to eye color, some local patterns emerged which we discuss as a consequence of negative frequency-dependent selection.
Recent studies show that health perception from faces by humans is a good predictor of good health and healthy behaviors. We aimed to automatize human health perception by training a Convolutional Neural Network on a related task (age estimation) combined with a Ridge Regression to rate faces. Indeed, contrary to health ratings, large datasets with labels of biological age exist. The results show that our system outperforms average human judgments for health. The system could be used on a daily basis to detect early signs of sickness or a declining state. We are convinced that such a system will contribute to more extensively explore the use of holistic, fast, and non-invasive measures to improve the speed of diagnosis.
A healthy appearance is linked to important behavioural outcomes. Here we investigated whether positive facial affect is a cue for perceived health. In study one, two groups of participants rated the perceived health or perceived happiness of a large set of faces with neutral expressions. Perceived happiness predicted perceived health, as did anthropometric measures of expression. In a second experimental study, we collected ratings of perceived health for a wide age range of target faces with either neutral or smiling expressions. Smiling faces were rated as being much healthier looking than neutral faces, confirming that facial expression plays a role in the perception of health. A third study investigating attractiveness as a possible mediator found that expression still had a significant direct effect on perceived health, after accounting for attractiveness. Together, these studies systematically show that facial affect plays a critical role in shaping our perceptions of health in others.
Skin radiance is a complex parameter that involves the quantity of light reflected from the skin (physical definition), but also it a psychological part and physicals items like skin color and skin relief. These different parameters can be evaluated by clinical scoring and various devices that are presented in this chapter.
In most categories of life deemed to be important, beautiful people achieve more desirable outcomes. Human beings prefer to associate with the most beautiful as these people are considered to be more successful, intelligent, and interesting than their unattractive counterparts. For much of history, it has been assumed that our preferences for beauty are gradually learned through cultural transmission and exposure to contemporary media. However, cross-cultural and infant studies have negated this and support the notion of the universality of beauty with some standards set by nature. Beauty preferences seem to be a result of a basic cognitive process that appears quite early in life, with humans having a near automatic tendency to categorize a person as attractive or unattractive. Although one can often articulate that a face is beautiful quite rapidly and from just small amounts of visual information, it is sometimes difficult to decipher the exact reasons as to what constitutes this beauty. Research suggests that the main attributes that humans find universally attractive in others include facial averageness, symmetry, sexual dimorphism, and skin homogeneity. In this chapter, these characteristics are defined and supported with research and evidence from the scientific community.
Though it may be implicit, appearance has been suggested to serve as an important indicator of aging. Since around 1992, there has been progress in research on evidenced-based physical examination – a clinical analysis method for assessing the results of physical diagnosis by statistics. The twenty-first century is referred to as the “era of images”; the use of image analysis has advanced, and statistical analysis methods are currently used to understand physical findings. The present paper examines the effects of appearance on aging and disease risks by classifying appearance into three distinct components: figure (physique), facial features, and skin.
While much is known about surface optics and topography, color contrast in skin remains a remarkable unstudied subject. The chapter will review, briefly, recent research in this area that sheds new light on the measurement of the molecular basis of color contrast in skin and its effect on perception of age, health, and attractiveness.
It is hypothesized that human faces judged to be attractive by people possess two features-averageness and symmetry-that promoted adaptive mate selection in human evolutionary history by way of production of offspring with parasite resistance. Facial composites made by combining individual faces are judged to be attractive, and more attractive than the majority of individual faces. The composites possess both symmetry and averageness of features. Facial averageness may reflect high individual protein heterozygosity and thus an array of proteins to which parasites must adapt. Heterozygosity may be an important defense of long-lived hosts against parasites when it occurs in portions of the genome that do not code for the essential features of complex adaptations. In this case heterozygosity can create a hostile microenvironment for parasites without disrupting adaptation. Facial bilateral symmetry is hypothesized to affect positive beauty judgments because symmetry is a certification of overall phenotypic quality and developmental health, which may be importantly influenced by parasites. Certain secondary sexual traits are influenced by testosterone, a hormone that reduces immunocompetence. Symmetry and size of the secondary sexual traits of the face (e.g., cheek bones) are expected to correlate positively and advertise immunocompetence honestly and therefore to affect positive beauty judgments. Facial attractiveness is predicted to correlate with attractive, nonfacial secondary sexual traits; other predictions from the view that parasite-driven selection led to the evolution of psychological adaptations of human beauty perception are discussed. The view that human physical attractiveness and judgments about human physical attractiveness evolved in the context of parasite-driven selection leads to the hypothesis that both adults and children have a species-typical adaptation to the problem of identifying and favoring healthy individuals and avoiding parasite-susceptible individuals. It is proposed that this adaptation guides human decisions about nepotism and reciprocity in relation to physical attractiveness.
The view that physical beauty is arbitrary, whimsical and unrelated to biological function has characterized much of the social scientific study of attractiveness and social com-mentary on the topic 1 . Evolutionary theory provides reasons to be very skeptical of this view. Like other species, humans have an evolutionary history during which selection-guided phenotypic and genotypic changes occurred 2–5 . Although selec-tion is not the only cause of evolution, it is the only cause of adaptations. Like the rest of the body, the human brain is the result of multiple adaptations, solutions to problems that in-fluenced the reproductive success (RS) of individuals over the evolutionary history of the species. One such problem was ob-taining a mate who would promote one's own genetic survival by reproducing successfully. Selection should have favored psychological features that (1) evaluated observable bodily traits that varied with mate value (what an individual brings to a relationship that affects the partner's RS), and (2) found attractive those traits connoting high mate value. Selection favors functionally specific adaptations rather than general-purpose ones, because only specialized mechanisms can solve the specific problems that are the forces of selection (e.g. ob-taining a mate who has genes that promote offspring survival). When members of a species discriminate between potential mates with regard to their physical appearance, as humans do, a reasonable working hypothesis is that the discrimination reflects special-purpose adaptations responsive to cues that had mate value in evolutionary history 6 . Recent evidence provides considerable support for this working hypothesis. Attractiveness as a health certificate Facial attractiveness assessments are more similar than dif-ferent across sexes and sexual orientations, ethnic groups, and ages from infants to the elderly 7–12 , with correlations between two raters' judgments typically in the range 0.3–0.5. Even within and between human groups with little or no contact with Western standards of beauty, there is appreciable agree-ment in facial attractiveness ratings 11 . Naturally, different societies do not place precisely the same value on all traits (and, as we indicate below, should not be expected to do so from an evolutionary perspective). However, the fact that hu-mans share views about what features are attractive suggests that there are species-typical psychological adaptations. Evolutionary psychologists studying physical attraction and attractiveness have been inspired by Donald Symons's book, The Evolution of Human Sexuality, which presented evidence that human attractiveness evolved because of mate preference for healthy and fertile mates 13 . Evenly colored, smooth, pliant skin, clear eyes and shiny hair are viewed as attractive, as well as signs of being disease-free. In its broadest sense, however, health status is not merely the presence or absence of disease. Rather, it can be defined as 'phenotypic condition' – the ability to acquire and allocate resources efficiently and effectively to activities that enhance survival and reproduction (i.e. the ability to garner and convert energy into returns in evolutionary fitness). By this view, two pathogen-free individuals who differ in metabolic efficiency (and, therefore, the fitness returns on energy expenditure) differ in health status. Moreover, two individuals who differ in their ability to accrue and allocate energy effectively might allocate similar resources to immune function and have simi-lar rates of disease, yet one could have a greater ability to con-vert energy into fitness returns and, therefore, have better phenotypic condition (everything else being equal). Overall condition can be affected by a number of factors, including mutations, pathogens, toxins and other insults experienced during development. Because mutations and the ability to resist pathogens and toxins can be heritable, overall phenotypic condition is also expected to be partly heritable.
Meta-analysis was used to examine findings in 2 related areas: experimental research on the physical attractiveness stereotype and correlational studies of characteristics associated with physical attractiveness. The experimental literature found that physically attractive people were perceived as more sociable, dominant, sexually warm, mentally healthy, intelligent, and socially skilled than physically unattractive people. Yet, the correlational literature indicated generally trivial relationships between physical attractiveness and measures of personality and mental ability, although good-looking people were less lonely, less socially anxious, more popular, more socially skilled, and more sexually experienced than unattractive people. Self-ratings of physical attractiveness were positively correlated with a wider range of attributes than was actual physical attractiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Contemporary mate preferences can provide important clues to human reproductive history. Little is known about which characteristics people value in potential mates. Five predictions were made about sex differences in human mate preferences based on evolutionary conceptions of parental investment, sexual selection, human reproductive capacity, and sexual asymmetries regarding certainty of paternity versus maternity. The predictions centered on how each sex valued earning capacity, ambition— industriousness, youth, physical attractiveness, and chastity. Predictions were tested in data from 37 samples drawn from 33 countries located on six continents and five islands (total N = 10,047). For 27 countries, demographic data on actual age at marriage provided a validity check on questionnaire data. Females were found to value cues to resource acquisition in potential mates more highly than males. Characteristics signaling reproductive capacity were valued more by males than by females. These sex differences may reflect different evolutionary selection pressures on human males and females; they provide powerful cross-cultural evidence of current sex differences in reproductive strategies. Discussion focuses on proximate mechanisms underlying mate preferences, consequences for human intrasexual competition, and the limitations of this study.
The notion that surface texture may provide important information about the geometry of visible surfaces has attracted considerable attention for a long time. The present study shows that skin texture plays a significant role in the judgment of female facial beauty. Following research in clinical dermatology, the authors developed a computer program that implemented an algorithm based on co-occurrence matrices for the analysis of facial skin texture. Homogeneity and contrast features as well as color parameters were extracted out of stimulus faces. Attractiveness ratings of the images made by male participants relate positively to parameters of skin homogeneity. The authors propose that skin texture is a cue to fertility and health. In contrast to some previous studies, the authors found that dark skin, not light skin, was rated as most attractive.
Young and healthy-looking skin is a feature that is universally admired and considered attractive among humans. However, as we age, skin condition deteriorates due to a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic factors determined not only by genetics and physiological health but also by behaviour and lifestyle choice. As regards the latter, cumulative, repeated exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR) is linked intrinsically to the induction of specific types of skin cancer and the expression of cutaneous damage markers responsible for the majority of the visible signs of skin ageing. Here we review empirical evidence for skin-specific effects of chronic UVR exposure and relate it to perception of visible skin condition. In contrast to other dermatological accounts, we stress an evolutionary psychology context in understanding the significance of age-related changes in visible skin condition in human social cognition and interaction. We suggest that the "marriage" of the scientific fields of skin biology and evolutionary psychology provides a modern, powerful framework for investigating the causes, mechanisms and perception of chronic sun damage of skin, as it explains the human obsession with a youthful and healthy appearance. Hence, it may be that these insights bring true emotional impetus to the adoption of sun protection strategies, which could conceivably impact skin cancer rates in coming years.
The desire of many to look young for their age has led to the establishment of a large cosmetics industry. However, the features of appearance that primarily determine how old women look for their age and whether genetic or environmental factors predominately influence such features are largely unknown. We studied the facial appearance of 102 pairs of female Danish twins aged 59 to 81 as well as 162 British females aged 45 to 75. Skin wrinkling, hair graying and lip height were significantly and independently associated with how old the women looked for their age. The appearance of facial sun-damage was also found to be significantly correlated to how old women look for their age and was primarily due to its commonality with the appearance of skin wrinkles. There was also considerable variation in the perceived age data that was unaccounted for. Composite facial images created from women who looked young or old for their age indicated that the structure of subcutaneous tissue was partly responsible. Heritability analyses of the appearance features revealed that perceived age, pigmented age spots, skin wrinkles and the appearance of sun-damage were influenced more or less equally by genetic and environmental factors. Hair graying, recession of hair from the forehead and lip height were influenced mainly by genetic factors whereas environmental factors influenced hair thinning. These findings indicate that women who look young for their age have large lips, avoid sun-exposure and possess genetic factors that protect against the development of gray hair and skin wrinkles. The findings also demonstrate that perceived age is a better biomarker of skin, hair and facial aging than chronological age.
Skin blood perfusion and oxygenation depends upon cardiovascular, hormonal and circulatory health in humans and provides socio-sexual signals of underlying physiology, dominance and reproductive status in some primates. We allowed participants to manipulate colour calibrated facial photographs along empirically-measured oxygenated and deoxygenated blood colour axes both separately and simultaneously, to optimise healthy appearance. Participants increased skin blood colour, particularly oxygenated, above basal levels to optimise healthy appearance. We show, therefore, that skin blood perfusion and oxygenation influence perceived health in a way that may be important to mate choice.
Six pairs of photographs showing human faces of both sexes were presented to 98 women who had to choose the more pleasing one of each pair. Faces within each pair were identical except for a slight difference in complexion. For women not taking oral contraceptives, skin-color preference differed significantly between two groups of subjects classified according to the current phase of their self-reported menstrual cycle: darker male faces were judged more positively by subjects in the phase when the estrogen/progesterone ratio was expected to be high than by those in the phase when this ratio was expected to be low. Female faces evoked no such cyclic response. Users of oral contraceptives showed no cyclic response to either male or female faces. These results suggest a mental mechanism whose inputs are (a) hormonal state, (b) visual identification of the sex of the face being observed, and (c) visual recognition of complexion, and whose output enters into evaluation of male and female faces. Replication with direct measures of hormonal state is recommended.
Common maxims about beauty suggest that attractiveness is not important in life. In contrast, both fitness-related evolutionary theory and socialization theory suggest that attractiveness influences development and interaction. In 11 meta-analyses, the authors evaluate these contradictory claims, demonstrating that (a) raters agree about who is and is not attractive, both within and across cultures; (b) attractive children and adults are judged more positively than unattractive children and adults, even by those who know them; (c) attractive children and adults are treated more positively than unattractive children and adults, even by those who know them; and (d) attractive children and adults exhibit more positive behaviors and traits than unattractive children and adults. Results are used to evaluate social and fitness-related evolutionary theories and the veracity of maxims about beauty.
The notion that surface texture may provide important information about the geometry of visible surfaces has attracted considerable attention for a long time. The present study shows that skin texture plays a significant role in the judgment of female facial beauty. Following research in clinical dermatology, the authors developed a computer program that implemented an algorithm based on co-occurrence matrices for the analysis of facial skin texture. Homogeneity and contrast features as well as color parameters were extracted out of stimulus faces. Attractiveness ratings of the images made by male participants relate positively to parameters of skin homogeneity. The authors propose that skin texture is a cue to fertility and health. In contrast to some previous studies, the authors found that dark skin, not light skin, was rated as most attractive.
Less than 150 years have elapsed since the publication of Darwin’s seminal work on evolution by natural selection, yet in this short period of time evolutionary theory has transformed our thinking in all aspects of human endeavor. The rapid progress that has been made, particularly in the last decades, is reflected in this book, which illustrates many key advances in the field and provides a sampler of the diversity of questions and research approachess that constitute the modern study of evolution. With contributions from leading experts, “Evolution: from molecules to ecosystems” addresses issues ranging from the fate of mutations to the origin of new genes, from mechanisms of speciation to patterns of radiation after mass extinctions, from recent migrations to ancient relationships, from symbiosis to virulent disease, and from the origin of play to perceptions of beauty. The book is designed to be advanced and up-to-date, but at the same time accessible and relevant to readers from the fields of genetics, ecology, animal behavior, anthropology and evolutionary biology. It will be particularly useful as a companion text for introductory and upper level courses in evolutionary biology.
Why do people resort to plastic surgery to look young? Why are stepchildren at greatest risk of fatal abuse? Why do we prefer gossip to algebra? Why must Dogon wives live alone in a dark hut for five days a month? Why are young children good at learning language but not sharing? Over the past decade, psychologists and behavioral ecologists have been finding answers to such seemingly unrelated questions by applying an evolutionary perspective to the study of human behavior and psychology. Human Evolutionary Psychology is a comprehensive, balanced, and readable introduction to this burgeoning field. It combines a sophisticated understanding of the basics of evolutionary theory with a solid grasp of empirical case studies.
Covering not only such traditional subjects as kin selection and mate choice, this text also examines more complex understandings of marriage practices and inheritance rules and the way in which individual action influences the structure of societies and aspects of cultural evolution. It critically assesses the value of evolutionary explanations to humans in both modern Western society and traditional preindustrial societies. And it fairly presents debates within the field, identifying areas of compatibility among sometimes competing approaches.
Combining a broad scope with the more in-depth knowledge and sophisticated understanding needed to approach the primary literature, this text is the ideal introduction to the exciting and rapidly expanding study of human evolutionary psychology.
In this survey we review the image processing literature on the various approaches and models investigators have used for texture. These include statistical approaches of autocorrelation functions, optical transforms, digital transforms, textural edgeness, structural element, gray tone co-occurrence, run lengths, and autoregressive models. We discuss and generalize some structural approaches to texture based on more complex primitives than gray tone. We conclude with some structural-statistical generalizations which apply the statistical techniques to the structural primitives. -Author
In the pathogenesis of acne, androgen hormones play a crucial role. In the treatment of acne, hormonal therapies provide valuable alternatives to standard modalities in selected women. Although numerous factors contribute to the development of acne, the requirement for androgens is absolute and is one that allows for effective treatments in women through inhibition of androgen expression. The two prerequisites for androgen expression at the level of the pilosebaceous unit are (i) the presence of androgen in the form of either testosterone or dihydrotestosterone; and (ii) functioning androgen receptors. A third component may be the metabolism of androgen precursors to active androgens within pilosebaceous units.
Hormonal treatment of hyperandrogenism (acne, hirsutism, androgenetic alopecia) such as that seen in polycystic ovary syndrome, centers on (i) reduction of circulating androgen levels and (ii) androgen receptor blockade. Combination oral contraceptives represent the primary treatment modality for reducing circulating androgens from ovarian and, to a lesser degree, adrenal sources. Newer formulations may also have clinically significant androgen receptor blocking and 5α-reductase inhibiting effects. Newer oral contraceptives have high safety profiles and are used widely internationally for this purpose. Androgen receptor blockers currently in use include spironolactone, cyproterone acetate, and flutamide. Androgen receptor blockers are frequently combined with oral contraceptives to achieve optimal results in selected women. In women with adrenal hyperplasia, low-dose corticosteroids may be added to reduce adrenal androgen precursors. Inhibition of enzymes of androgen metabolism in the pilosebaceous unit remain largely investigational in the treatment of acne, although the benefit of 5a-reductase (type 2) inhibition is established in androgenetic alopecia in men.
This article reviews the essentials of hormonal influence in acne pathogenesis, discusses the hormonal therapies most utilized in the treatment of acne, and the pre-treatment evaluation of women in whom hormonal therapies are being considered.
A review is presented of the image processing literature on the various approaches and models investigators have used for textures. These include statistical approaches of autocorrelation function, optical transforms, digital transforms, textural edgeness, structural element, gray tone co-occurrence, run lengths, and auto-regressive models. A discussion and generalization is presented of some structural approaches to texture based on more complex primitives than gray tone. Some structural-statistical generalizations which apply the statistical techniques to the structural primitives are given.
If attractiveness is an important cue for mate choice, as proposed by evolutionary psychologists, then attractive individuals should have greater mating success than their peers. We tested this hypothesis in a large sample of adults. Facial attractiveness correlated with the number of short-term, but not long-term, sexual partners, for males, and with the number of long-term, but not short-term, sexual partners and age of first sex, for females. Body attractiveness also correlated significantly with the number of short-term, but not long-term, sexual partners, for males, and attractive males became sexually active earlier than their peers. Body attractiveness did not correlate with any sexual behavior variable for females. To determine which aspects of attractiveness were important, we examined associations between sexual behaviors and three components of attractiveness: sexual dimorphism, averageness, and symmetry. Sexual dimorphism showed the clearest associations with sexual behaviors. Masculine males (bodies, similar trend for faces) had more short-term sexual partners, and feminine females (faces) had more long-term sexual partners than their peers. Feminine females (faces) also became sexually active earlier than their peers. Average males (faces and bodies) had more short-term sexual partners and more extra-pair copulations (EPC) than their peers. Symmetric women (faces) became sexually active earlier than their peers. Given that male reproductive success depends more on short-term mating opportunities than does female reproductive success, these findings suggest that individuals of high phenotypic quality have higher mating success than their lower quality counterparts.
We investigated aspects of self-reported health history–the number and duration of respiratory and stomach or intestinal infections and the number of uses of antibiotics over the last 3 years–in relation to measured facial masculinity, developmental instability [facial asymmetry and body fluctuating asymmetry (FA)] and facial attractiveness in a sample of 203 men and 203 women. As predicted from the hypothesis that the degree of facial masculinity is an honest signal of individual quality, men's facial masculinity correlated negatively and women's positively with respiratory disease number and duration. Stomach illness, however, was not associated significantly with facial masculinity and antibiotic use correlated significantly (negatively) only with men's facial masculinity. For both facial asymmetry and body FA, significant, positive associations were seen with the number of respiratory infections. In addition, facial asymmetry was associated positively with the number of days infected and marginally, in the same direction, with antibiotic use. Facial attractiveness showed no significant relationships with any of our health-history measures. This study provides some evidence that facial masculinity in both sexes may signal disease resistance and that developmental stability covaries positively with disease resistance. The validity of our health measures is discussed.
Why have males in many species evolved more conspicuous ornaments and signals such as bright colours, enlarged fins, and feather plumes, as well as larger horns and other weapons than females? Darwin's explanation for such secondary sex traits, the theory of sexual selection, became his scientifically perhaps most controversial idea. It suggests that the traits are favoured by competition over mates. After a long period of relative quiescence, theoretical and empirical research on sexual selection has erupted during the last decades. This book describes the theory and its recent development, reviews models, methods, and empirical tests, and identifies many remaining open problems.
Among the topics discussed are the selection and evolution of mating preferences; relations between sexual selection, species recognition, and speciation; constraints on sexual selection; the selection of secondary sex differences in body size, weapons, and in visual, acoustic, and chemical signals. The rapidly growing study of sexual selection in plants is also reviewed. Other chapters deal with alternative mating tactics, and with the relationships among sexual selection, parental roles, and mating systems. The present review of this very active research field will be of interest to students, teachers, and research workers in behavioural and evolutionary ecology, animal behaviour, plant reproductive ecology, and other areas of evolutionary biology where sexual selection is a potential selection factor. In spite of much exciting progress, some of the main questions in the theory of sexual selection yet remain to be answered.
A model of color formation within human skin has been developed to aid the characterization of pigmented skin lesions from their digitized color images. The model is based on the Kublenka-Munk theory of scattering and absorption within inhomogeneous materials and the physics pertaining to their color properties. By considering the skin to be a layered construction of such materials, the stratum corneum, epidermis, papillary dermis and reticular dermis, and by exploiting the physics related to the optical interface between these layers, the model generates all possible colors occurring within normal human skin. In particular, the model predicts that all skin colors have to lie on a simple curved surface patch within a three- dimensional color space bounded by two physiologically meaningful axes, one corresponding to the amount of melanin within the epidermis and the other to the amount of blood within the dermis. These predictions were verified by comparing the CIE LMS coordinates of a representative, cross-racial sample of fifty skin images with the LMS coordinates predicted by the model. The results show that, within the predicted error bounds, the coordinates for normal skin colors do indeed lie on the curved surface generated by the model. Several possible applications of this representation are outlined, including images representing the melanin and blood components separately, as well as the possibility of measuring the Breslow thickness of melanocytic invasion within malignant melanoma.
"Human Evolutionary Psychology" offers a comprehensive overview of all aspects of human evolutionary behavior and psychology. Tackling mate choice to marriage patterns, childcare to cultural evolution, this book critically assess the value of evolutionary explanations to humans in both modern western society and traditional pre-industrial societies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Objectives Evolutionary psychology suggests that a woman’s age and physical appearance are important mate choice criteria. Given that changes in female facial skin surface topography are important, prominent visible signs of aging, male perceptual sensitivity for variation in this trait may also affect preference and attractiveness judgment.
Methods Two experiments were conducted to investigate perception (Experiment 1) and noticeability (Experiment 2) of skin surface topography manipulations in facial images of six British women, aged 45–65 years. In Experiment 1 skin surface topography cues were completely removed on the cheeks, the “crow’s feet” area adjacent to the eye, under the eyes, above the upper lip, and on the forehead while, in Experiment 2, it was removed gradually (20% increments) on the forehead and around the eyes. In both experiments, stimuli were presented to American and German participants (total N = 300, aged 15–55 years) in omnibus pair-wise combinations (within-face). With each pair, respondents were asked to select that face which they considered as younger looking (Experiments 1 and 2) and more attractive (Experiment 1).
Results Faces with skin surface topography cues removed were judged significantly younger and more attractive than their original (unmodified) counterparts, with modifications on the forehead and around the eyes showing the highest differences. In these areas, participants were able to detect at least a 20% visual change in skin surface topography.
Conclusions The results support the assertion that even small changes in skin surface topography affect the perceptions of a woman’s facial age and attractiveness and may, thus, also influence men’s mate preferences.
Evolutionary psychologists have proposed that preferences for facial characteristics, such as symmetry, averageness, and sexual dimorphism, may reflect adaptations for mate choice because they signal aspects of mate quality. Here, we show that facial skin color distribution significantly influences the perception of age and attractiveness of female faces, independent of facial form and skin surface topography. A set of three-dimensional shape-standardized stimulus faces-varying only in terms of skin color distribution due to variation in biological age and cumulative photodamage-was rated by a panel of naive judges for a variety of perceptual endpoints relating to age, health, and beauty. Shape- and topography-standardized stimulus faces with the homogeneous skin color distribution of young people were perceived as younger and received significantly higher ratings for attractiveness and health than analogous stimuli with the relatively inhomogeneous skin color distribution of more elderly people. Thus, skin color distribution, independent of facial form and skin surface topography, seems to have a major influence on the perception of female facial age and judgments of attractiveness and health as they may signal aspects of underlying physiological condition of an individual relevant for mate choice. We suggest that studies on human physical attractiveness and its perception need to consider the influence of visible skin condition driven by color distribution and differentiate between such effects and beauty-related traits due to facial shape and skin topography.
We present a new approach to texture analysis based on the spatial distribution of local features in unsegmented textures. The textures are described using features derived from generalized co-occurrence matrices (GCM). A GCM is determined by a spatial constraint predicate F and a set of local features P = {(Xi, Yi, di), i = 1,..., m} where (Xi, Yi) is the location of the ith feature, and di is a description of the ith feature. The GCM of P under F, GF, is defined by GF(i, j) = number of pairs, pk, pl such that F(pk, pl) is true and di and dj are the descriptions of pk and pl, respectively. We discuss features derived from GCM's and present an experimental study using natural textures.
The human face communicates an impressive number of visual signals. Although adults' ratings of facial attractiveness are consistent across studies, even cross-culturally, there has been considerable controversy surrounding attempts to identify the facial features that cause faces to be judged attractive or unattractive. Studies of physical attractiveness have attempted to identify the features that contribute to attractiveness by studying the relationships between attractiveness and (a) symmetry, (b) averageness, and (c) nonaverage sexually dimorphic features (hormone markers). Evolutionary psychology proposes that these characteristics all pertain to health, suggesting that humans have evolved to view certain features as attractive because they were displayed by healthy individuals. However, the question remains how single features that are considered attractive relate to each other, and if they form a single ornament that signals mate quality. Moreover, some researchers have recently explained attractiveness preferences in terms of individual differences that are predictable. This article briefly describes what is currently known from attractiveness research, reviews some recent advances, and suggests areas for future researchers' attention.
Members of host species in pathogen-host coevolutionary races may be selected to choose mates who possess features of physical appearance associated with pathogen resistance. Human data from 29 cultures indicate that people in geographical areas carrying relatively greater prevalences of pathogens value a mate's physical attractiveness more than people in areas with relatively little pathogen incidence. The relationship between pathogen prevalence and the value people place on physical attractiveness remained strong even after potential confounds such as distance from the equator, geographical region, and average income were statistically controlled for. Discussion focuses on potential limitations of the data, alternative explanations for the findings, and the nature of adaptions to the problems posed by pathogen prevalence.
Humans in societies around the world discriminate between potential mates on the basis of attractiveness in ways that can dramatically affect their lives. From an evolutionary perspective, a reasonable working hypothesis is that the psychological mechanisms underlying attractiveness judgments are adaptations that have evolved in the service of choosing a mate so as to increase gene propagation throughout evolutionary history. The main hypothesis that has directed evolutionary psychology research into facial attractiveness is that these judgments reflect information about what can be broadly defined as an individual’s health. This has been investigated by examining whether attractiveness judgments show special design for detecting cues that allow us to make assessments of overall phenotypic condition. This review examines the three major lines of research that have been pursued in order to answer the question of whether attractiveness reflects non-obvious indicators of phenotypic condition. These are studies that have examined facial symmetry, averageness, and secondary sex characteristics as hormone markers.
Females gain direct or indirect fitness benefits by choosing between males with traits indicating "good genes," but we usually know very little about the nature of these genes. However, it has been suggested that genetic quality may often be defined as heterozygosity at certain loci. Here, we show that heterozygosity at three key loci in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is associated with facial attractiveness: Faces of men who are heterozygous at all three loci are judged more attractive by women than faces of men who are homozygous at one or more of these loci. MHC genes code for proteins involved in immune response. Consistent with this function, faces of MHC heterozygotes are also perceived to be healthier. In a separate test, in the absence of any other cues, patches of skin from the cheeks of heterozygotes are judged healthier than skin of homozygotes, and these ratings correlate with attractiveness judgements for the whole face. Because levels of MHC similarity can influence mate preferences in animals and humans, we conducted a second experiment with genotyped women raters, finding that preferences for heterozygosity are independent of the degree of MHC similarity between the men and the female raters. Our results are the first to directly link facial attractiveness and a measure of genetic quality and suggest a mechanism to help explain common consensus concerning individual attractiveness. In a relatively monogamous species like humans, evolutionary benefits from choosing heterozygous mates could include prolonged parental care and reduced risk of contracting disease for females and their offspring. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Skin color distribution and skin surface topography are the predominant drivers of the variation in visible skin condition, and this variation affects one's perception of age and health. Recent research, however, has shown that the strength of the impact of these features on perception differs such that skin surface topography is a stronger indicator of age, while skin color distribution is more strongly linked to health perception.
To examine further the relative contribution and interaction effects of skin color distribution and surface topography cues on perception by considering small changes of these features.
Two sets of images were created by gradually smoothing uneven skin color distribution and removing skin surface topography cues (both in 25% increments) in the digital image of the face of a 61-year-old British woman. Omnibus pairwise combinations of modified images were presented to a panel of 160 German men and women (aged 19-49 years). With each pair, they were asked to select the face they considered both younger-looking and healthier.
Female facial age perception was more strongly affected by the removal of skin surface topography cues than by changes in skin color distribution, particularly so for topography removal of 50% and more. In contrast, the smoothing of uneven skin color distribution had a stronger effect on the perception of female facial health, particularly for changes of 25% and greater.
These results support previous reports on the differential effects of visible skin color distribution and surface topography cues on the perception of female facial age and health and show that only relatively small changes are necessary to drive this differential perception.
Regular sunscreen use prevents cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma long term, but the effect on melanoma is highly controversial. We evaluated whether long-term application of sunscreen decreases risk of cutaneous melanoma. Participants and
In 1992, 1,621 randomly selected residents of Nambour, a township in Queensland, Australia, age 25 to 75 years, were randomly assigned to daily or discretionary sunscreen application to head and arms in combination with 30 mg beta carotene or placebo supplements until 1996. Participants were observed until 2006 with questionnaires and/or through pathology laboratories and the cancer registry to ascertain primary melanoma occurrence.
Ten years after trial cessation, 11 new primary melanomas had been identified in the daily sunscreen group, and 22 had been identified in the discretionary group, which represented a reduction of the observed rate in those randomly assigned to daily sunscreen use (hazard ratio [HR], 0.50; 95% CI, 0.24 to 1.02; P = .051). The reduction in invasive melanomas was substantial (n = 3 in active v 11 in control group; HR, 0.27; 95% CI, 0.08 to 0.97) compared with that for preinvasive melanomas (HR, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.29 to 1.81).
Melanoma may be preventable by regular sunscreen use in adults.
Solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR) is well known for its immunosuppressive properties. UVR can suppress immune reactions both in a local and a systemic fashion. One of the major molecular mediators of photoimmunosuppression is UVR-induced DNA damage. In contrast to immunosuppressive drugs, UVR does not act in a general but antigen-specific fashion. This is due to the induction of regulatory T cells. Epidermal Langerhans cells harboring UVR-induced DNA damage appear to be essentially involved in the induction of these cells. Cytokines including interleukin (IL)-12, -18 and -23 exert the capacity to reduce UVR-induced DNA damage via induction of DNA repair. Accordingly, these cytokines prevent UVR-mediated immunosuppression. In contrast to IL-18, IL-12 and IL-23 can also inhibit the suppressive activity of regulatory T cells by a mechanism which still needs to be determined. Clarification of the molecular mechanisms underlying UVR-induced immunosuppression will help to develop new immunosuppressive therapeutic strategies by utilizing UVR-induced regulatory T cells for the treatment of immune-mediated diseases. In addition, these insights will contribute to a better understanding of photocarcinogenesis since suppression of the immune system by UVR essentially contributes to the induction of skin cancer.
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrine disorder in women of reproductive age. There is an increasing body of evidence indicating that PCOS may have significant implications for pregnancy outcomes and long-term health of a woman and her offspring. Whether or not PCOS itself or the symptoms that coincide with PCOS, like obesity and fertility treatment, are responsible for these increased risks is a continuing matter of debate. Miscarriage rates among women with PCOS are believed to be increased compared with normal fertile women, although supporting evidence is limited. Pregnant women with PCOS experience a higher incidence of perinatal morbidity from gestational diabetes, pregnancy-induced hypertension, and preeclampsia. Their babies are at an increased risk of neonatal complications, such as preterm birth and admission at a neonatal intensive care unit. Pre-pregnancy, antenatal, and intrapartum care should be aimed at reducing these risks. The use of insulin sensitizing drugs to decrease hyperinsulinemic insulin resistance has been proposed during pregnancy to reduce the risk of developing preeclampsia or gestational diabetes. Although metformin appears to be safe, there are too few data from prospective, randomized controlled trials to support treatment during pregnancy.
Synopsis
Evolutionary psychology suggests that certain human beauty standards have evolved to provide reliable cues of fertility and health. Hence, preferences for some physical characteristics of the face and body are thought to reflect adaptations for the promotion of mate choice. Studies that have investigated facial attractiveness have concentrated mainly on features such as symmetry, averageness and sex‐typical traits, which are developed under the influence of sex steroids. Few studies, however, have addressed the effect of human skin condition on perception of facial appearance in this context, and possible implications for sexual selection. There is now accumulating evidence that skin pigmentation and skin surface topography cues, particularly in women, have a significant influence on attractiveness judgements, as they seem primarily to signal aspects of age and health. This article (i) reviews briefly some of the main determinants of visible skin condition, (ii) presents recent evidence on its signalling value in face perception and (iii) suggests areas for future research with reference to an evolutionary psychology framework.
Both aging and sun exposure have well-documented effects on the human melanocyte system. Paired biopsies of habitually exposed and nonexposed skin from adjacent anatomic sites were obtained from 8 donors aged 28 to 80 yr in order to study the combined effect of chronic actinic irradiation and chronologic aging. Density of dopa-positive melanocytes was roughly twofold higher in the exposed than in the nonexposed skin at all ages, suggesting an irreversible effect of sun exposure. Melanocyte density declined approximately 6 to 8% of the surviving population per decade in both sites. Dopa-positivity of individual melanocytes was consistently greater in the chronically exposed skin than in the nonexposed skin of the same subject and did not vary with age. These data strengthen and expand earlier observations of age-related melanocyte changes, and explain the apparent paradox of a generalized increase in pigmentation and simultaneous decrease in melanocyte density which frequently accompany advancing age. In addition, the present study suggests that the principal effect of chronic sun exposure on the human pigmentary system is not premature "aging" as currently recognized histologically, but rather activation and/or proliferation of the exposed melanocytes.
The distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic ageing can be made on both histological and clinical grounds. Clinical criteria associated with the diagnosis of extrinsic ageing are coarse wrinkles, actinic lentigines, elastotic conditions, purpura, telangiectasia and cutaneous neoplasms. These parameters are always superimposed on changes associated with intrinsic ageing: namely, fine wrinkles and benign growths. There is heightened interest in extrinsic ageing as a result of studies demonstrating the efficacy of topical tretinoin in improving this condition. As a consequence, systems for grading extrinsic ageing have been developed, including a photographic standard scale which removes some of the subjectivity inherent to current methodology.
Image segmentation algorithms extract regions on the basis of similarity of a predefined image feature such as gray-level value. In many applications, images that exhibit a variety of structure or texture cannot be adequately segmented by gray-level values alone. Additional features related to the structure of the image are needed to segment such images. Images of skin lesions exhibit significant variations in color hues as well as geometrical appearance of local surface structure. For example, images of cutaneous malignant melanoma exhibit a rich combination of color and geometrical structure of pigmentation. In these images, the local repetition of the geometrical surface structure provides the basis for the appearance of a texture pattern in the neighborhood region. For obtaining meaningful segmentation of images of skin lesions, a multichannel segmentation algorithm is proposed in this paper which uses both gray-level intensity and texture-based features for region extraction. The intensity-based segmentation is obtained using the modified pyramid-based region extraction algorithm. The texture-based segmentation is obtained by a bilevel shifted-window processing algorithm that uses new generalized co-occurrence matrices. The results of individual segmentations obtained from different channels, representing the complete set of color and texture information, are analyzed using heuristic merging rules to obtain the final color- and texture-based segmentation. Simulated as well as real images of skin lesions, representing various color shades and textures, have been processed. We show that using contrast link information in the pyramid-based region extraction process, and using the absolute magnitude and directional information in the generalized co-occurrence matrices (GCM) method, significant improvement in image segmentation can be obtained. Further, by incorporating the merging rules better results are obtained than those obtained using the gray-level intensity feature alone.
Out of 98 female referrals with acne vulgaris it was possible to define ovarian morphology by high resolution ultrasound imaging of the pelvis in 82 (84%). Sixty-eight (83%) were shown to have polycystic ovaries, compared with 19% in a control group without acne. The presence of polycystic ovaries in the acne patients did not correlate with acne severity, infertility, menstrual disturbance, hirsutes, or biochemical endocrinological abnormalities.
We describe a family in which lentigines were present in the index patient, in three of her seven siblings, in their mother, and in a niece (the daughter of an affected sister). Cutaneous myxomas were present in the index patient, in two of her brothers, and probably in their mother. In addition, the index patient had two cardiac myxomas. multiple myxoid mammary fibroadenomas, and the Cushing syndrome, and an affected brother had acromegaly caused by a growth hormone-secreting tumor of the pituitary gland. Thus, at least one manifestation of the complex of myxomas, spotty pigmentation, and endocrine overactivity has occurred in three successive generations of this family. Both male and female family members were affected, and 5 of the 11 children of affected persons had the disorder. The karyotypes of two affected persons were normal. These observations are consistent with mendelian dominant inheritance of the syndrome.
We reviewed the Mayo Clinic records of 56 patients who underwent operation for cardiac myxoma and 29 cases in which cardiac myxoma was found at autopsy. Five patients had a "complex" of unusual findings including multiple pigmented skin lesions (lentiginosis), myxoid fibroadenomas of the breast, skin myxomas, and primary pigmented nodular adrenocortical disease (a cause of Cushing's syndrome). Four of these five patients had multiple cardiac myxomas. Three of the four patients who underwent surgical excision of the cardiac myxomas had recurrent myxomas (the only recurrences in our series), and one of these patients had a second recurrence. The occurrence of multiple and recurrent myxomas in patients with the complex was significantly (p less than 0.001) higher than in our 80 patients with sporadic myxomas. The world literature was searched for cases of cardiac myxomas with the unusual associations of the complex, and also for familial, multiple, and recurrent myxomas. A group of patients were identified who had unusual biologic behavior including early development of myxomas, atypical myxoma locations, and a high risk for the development of recurrent myxomas. For these patients, we recommend a thorough search for multiple tumors at operation, close postoperative follow-up, and careful screening of family members.
Of 40 patients (16 males and 24 females), 29 had cardiac myxoma(s), 14 had skin pigmentation (lentigo and several types of nevi) which also commonly affected the lips, 6 had skin myxoma(s), and 12 had both pigmentation and myxoma(s); 18 had primary pigmented nodular adrenocortical disease (Cushing syndrome was present in 11); 10 had myxoid mammary fibroadenomas; 9 had testicular tumor(s) (large-cell calcifying Sertoli cell tumor, Leydig cell tumor, or adrenocortical rest tumor, or a combination); and 4 had pituitary adenoma with gigantism or acromegaly. The maximum number of conditions present together was five, occurring in two patients; each of the remaining patients had at least two of the conditions. The overlap, in this sizeable number of patients, of various combinations of the same rare or very rare conditions unlikely to occur together by chance with any degree of frequency is striking evidence for a unique syndrome. The patients were young (mean age at diagnosis of the first component, 18 years). Pathologic involvement tended to be multicentric (heart and skin) and bilateral in paired organs (adrenal, breast, and testis). Thirteen patients (32%) are alive and well. Twelve patients are alive but with complications of cardiac myxoma (in 8), testicular tumors (in 2), residual Cushing syndrome (in 1), or bilateral pulmonary nodules (in 1). Twelve patients are dead: 9 of cardiac myxoma, 1 of intracranial (nonpituitary) tumor, and 2 postoperatively. The status of three is unknown.
Elevated serum androgen levels have been reported in patients with acne resistant to conventional dermatologic therapy. This study was designed to investigate the relationship between serum androgen levels and the presence of acne in an unselected population of women seen consecutively by a dermatologist for various dermatologic complaints. Elevated serum testosterone levels were associated with acne regardless of whether this was the presenting complaint or an incidental finding. Women with both acne and hirsutism had higher serum testosterone levels than those with acne alone. Higher incidence of irregular menstrual cycles was noted in women complaining of acne. Normal serum testosterone levels were found only in those patients with regular menstrual cycles and the absence of acne or hirsutism. In conclusion, this study suggests that elevated serum testosterone levels are related to the presence of acne. Attention is called to the possibility that acne may be a clinical manifestation of a disorder with systemic and reproductive consequences.
Developmental stability reflects the ability of a genotype to undergo stable development of a phenotype under given environmental conditions. Deviations from developmental stability arise from the disruptive effects of a wide range of environmental and genetic stresses, and such deviations are usually measured in terms of fluctuating asymmetry and phenodeviants. Fluctuating asymmetry is the most sensitive indicator of the ability to cope with stresses during ontogeny. There is considerable evidence that developmental stability, and especially fluctuating asymmetry, is a useful measure of phenotypic and genetic quality, because it covaries negatively with performance in multiple fitness domains in many species, including humans. It is proposed that developmental stability is an important marker of human health. Our goal is to initiate formally the integration of the sciences of evolutionary biology, developmental biology and medicine. We believe that this integrative framework provides a significant addition to the growing field of Darwinian medicine. The literature linking developmental stability and disease in humans is reviewed. Recent biological theoretical treatments pertaining to developmental stability are applied to a range of human health issues such as genetic diseases, ageing and survival, subfertility, abortion, child maltreatment by parents, cancer, infectious diseases, physiological and mental health, and physical attractiveness as a health certification.
A male patient is described with melanocytic schwannoma, atrial myxoma and spotty pigmentation in the face due to Carney complex. Remarkable findings are fertility problems with bilateral macroorchidism and oligoasthenospermia.
To determine whether acne is associated with hyperandrogenemia, regardless of age of presentation.
Prospective controlled study.
Tertiary-care medical center.
Thirty consecutive unselected women presenting with acne and no hirsutism and 24 eumenorrheic healthy controls.
Serum samples was taken in all patients, and an acute 60-minute ACTH-(1-24) test was performed in 19 patients.
Total and free T, sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), and DHEAS levels in basal samples, and ACTH-stimulated 17-hydroxyprogesterone (17-HP) response to exclude 21-hydroxylase (21-OH)-deficient nonclassic adrenal hyperplasia (NCAH) were determined.
Nonhirsute patients with acne demonstrated significantly lower levels of SHBG and higher free-T and DHEAS levels than controls. Nineteen (63%) acneic patients had at least one androgen value above the 95% of controls. In patients aged 12-18 years, 7/8 (88%) had at least one increased androgen value, compared with 12/22 (55%) patients aged 19-43 years. One patient (5.3%) was found to have 21-OH-deficient NCAH.
Hyperandrogenemia was evident in a majority of nonhirsute acneic patients studied, regardless of age. These data suggest that androgen suppression may be useful in treating acne in many of these patients.