Individual Aesthetic Preferences for Faces Are Shaped Mostly by Environments, Not Genes

The psychometrics of rating facial attractiveness using different response scales

Perceiving facial attractiveness is an important behaviour across psychological science due to these judgments having real-world consequences. However, there is little consensus on the measurement of this behaviour, and practices differ widely. Research typically asks participants to provide ratings of attractiveness across a multitude of different response scales, with little consideration of the psychometric properties of these scales. Here, we make psychometric comparisons across nine different response scales. Specifically, we analysed the psychometric properties of a binary response, a 0-100 scale, a visual analogue scale, and a set of Likert scales (1-3, 1-5, 1-7, 1-8, 1-9, 1-10) as tools to measure attractiveness, calculating a range of commonly used statistics for each. While certain properties suggested researchers might choose to favour the 1-5, 1-7 and 1-8 scales, we generally found little evidence of an advantage for one scale over any other. Taken together, our investigation provides consideration of currently used techniques for measuring facial attractiveness and makes recommendations for researchers in this field.

Genetic and Environmental Contributions of Primary Angle-Closure Glaucoma and Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma: A Nationwide Study in Taiwan

PURPOSE

To estimate the familial risks of primary angle-closure glaucoma (PACG) and primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) and assess the relative contributions of environmental and genetic factors to these risks.

DESIGN

Retrospective, population-based cohort study.

METHODS

We used the 2000-2017 Taiwan National Health Insurance Program database to construct 4,144,508 families for the 2017 population (N = 23,373,209). We used the polygenic liability model to estimate glaucoma's heritability and familial transmission. The degree of familial aggregation of glaucoma was obtained from the adjusted relative risk for individuals whose first-degree relatives had glaucoma using Cox's model.

RESULTS

PACG and POAG prevalence rates for individuals whose first-degree relatives had PACG or POAG were 0.95% and 2.40%, higher than those of the general population (0.61% and 0.40%, respectively). The relative risk of PACG in individuals whose first-degree relatives had PACG was 2.44 (95% CI = 2.31-2.58). The relative risk of POAG in individuals whose first-degree relatives had POAG was 6.66 (95% CI = 6.38-6.94). The estimated contributions to PACG and POAG phenotypic variances were 19.4% and 59.6% for additive genetic variance, 19.1% and 23.2% for common environmental factors shared by family members, and 61.5% and 17.2% for nonshared environmental factors, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

These data highlight the relative importance of genetic contribution to POAG and environmental contribution to PACG. Therefore, future work may need to focus on finding more novel environmental determinants of PACG.

Genetic effects on variability in visual aesthetic evaluations are partially shared across visual domains

The aesthetic values that individuals place on visual images are formed and shaped over a lifetime. However, whether the formation of visual aesthetic value is solely influenced by environmental exposure is still a matter of debate. Here, we considered differences in aesthetic value emerging across three visual domains: abstract images, scenes, and faces. We examined variability in two major dimensions of ordinary aesthetic experiences: taste-typicality and evaluation-bias. We build on two samples from the Australian Twin Registry where 1547 and 1231 monozygotic and dizygotic twins originally rated visual images belonging to the three domains. Genetic influences explained 26% to 41% of the variance in taste-typicality and evaluation-bias. Multivariate analyses showed that genetic effects were partially shared across visual domains. Results indicate that the heritability of major dimensions of aesthetic evaluations is comparable to that of other complex social traits, albeit lower than for other complex cognitive traits. The exception was taste-typicality for abstract images, for which we found only shared and unique environmental influences. Our study reveals that diverse sources of genetic and environmental variation influence the formation of aesthetic value across distinct visual domains and provides improved metrics to assess inter-individual differences in aesthetic value.

Genetic Influence on Gyral Peaks

Genetic mechanisms have been hypothesized to be a major determinant in the formation of cortical folding. Although there is an increasing number of studies examining the heritability of cortical folding, most of them focus on sulcal pits rather than gyral peaks. Gyral peaks, which reflect the highest local foci on gyri and are consistent across individuals, remain unstudied in terms of heritability. To address this knowledge gap, we used high-resolution data from the Human Connectome Project (HCP) to perform classical twin analysis and estimate the heritability of gyral peaks across various brain regions. Our results showed that the heritability of gyral peaks was heterogeneous across different cortical regions, but relatively symmetric between hemispheres. We also found that pits and peaks are different in a variety of anatomic and functional measures. Further, we explored the relationship between the levels of heritability and the formation of cortical folding by utilizing the evolutionary timeline of gyrification. Our findings indicate that the heritability estimates of both gyral peaks and sulcal pits decrease linearly with the evolution timeline of gyrification. This suggests that the cortical folds which formed earlier during gyrification are subject to stronger genetic influences than the later ones. Moreover, the pits and peaks coupled by their time of appearance are also positively correlated in respect of their heritability estimates. These results fill the knowledge gap regarding genetic influences on gyral peaks and significantly advance our understanding of how genetic factors shape the formation of cortical folding. The comparison between peaks and pits suggests that peaks are not a simple morphological mirror of pits but could help complete the understanding of folding patterns.

Aesthetic experience models human learning

Aesthetic experiences have the potential to promote learning and creativity by enhancing the ability to understand complexity and to integrate novel or disparate information. Offering a theoretical framework for understanding the cognitive benefits of aesthetic experiences, this paper argues they are the necessary outcome of human learning, in which natural objects or artworks are evaluated in a multi-dimensional preference space shaped by Bayesian prediction. In addition, it contends that the brain-states underlying aesthetic experiences harness configurations of the apex three transmodal neural systems-the default mode network, the central executive network, and the salience network-that may offer information-processing advantages by recruiting the brain's high-power communication hubs, thus enhancing potential for learning gain.

Individual attractiveness preferences differentially modulate immediate and voluntary attention

Physical attractiveness plays a crucial role in mate choice for both men and women. This is reflected in visual attention: people immediately attend towards and look longer at attractive faces, especially when they are motivated to find a partner. However, previous studies did not incorporate real-life dating decisions. Here, we aimed to combine attentional tasks with individual attractiveness ratings and a real-life mate choice context, namely a speed-dating paradigm. We investigated whether heterosexual non-committed young adults showed biases in immediate and voluntary attention towards attractive faces and preferred dating partners. In line with previous research, we found considerable individual differences in individual attractiveness preferences. Furthermore, our results showed that men had a bias towards attractive faces and preferred dating partners in the immediate attention task, while results for women were mixed. In the voluntary attention task, however, both men and women had an attentional bias towards attractive faces and preferred dating partners. Our results suggest that individual attractiveness preferences are good predictors of especially voluntary attention. We discuss these findings from an evolutionary perspective and suggest directions for future research.

How do we describe other people from voices and faces?

When seeing someone's face or hearing their voice, perceivers routinely infer information about a person's age, sex and social traits. While many experiments have explored how individual person characteristics are perceived in isolation, less is known about which person characteristics are described spontaneously from voices and faces and how descriptions may differ across modalities. In Experiment 1, participants provided free descriptions for voices and faces. These free descriptions followed similar patterns for voices and faces - and for individual identities: Participants spontaneously referred to a wide range of descriptors. Psychological descriptors, such as character traits, were used most frequently; physical characteristics, such as age and sex, were notable as they were mentioned earlier than other types of descriptors. After finding primarily similarities between modalities when analysing person descriptions across identities, Experiment 2 asked whether free descriptions encode how individual identities differ. For this purpose, the measures derived from the free descriptions were linked to voice/face discrimination judgements that are known to describe differences in perceptual properties between identity pairs. Significant relationships emerged within and across modalities, showing that free descriptions indeed encode differences between identities - information that is shared with discrimination judgements. This suggests that the two tasks tap into similar, high-level person representations. These findings show that free description data can offer valuable insights into person perception and underline that person perception is a multivariate process during which perceivers rapidly and spontaneously infer many different person characteristics to form a holistic impression of a person.

Idiosyncratic biases in the perception of medical images

Introduction

Radiologists routinely make life-altering decisions. Optimizing these decisions has been an important goal for many years and has prompted a great deal of research on the basic perceptual mechanisms that underlie radiologists' decisions. Previous studies have found that there are substantial individual differences in radiologists' diagnostic performance (e.g., sensitivity) due to experience, training, or search strategies. In addition to variations in sensitivity, however, another possibility is that radiologists might have perceptual biases-systematic misperceptions of visual stimuli. Although a great deal of research has investigated radiologist sensitivity, very little has explored the presence of perceptual biases or the individual differences in these.

Methods

Here, we test whether radiologists' have perceptual biases using controlled artificial and Generative Adversarial Networks-generated realistic medical images. In Experiment 1, observers adjusted the appearance of simulated tumors to match the previously shown targets. In Experiment 2, observers were shown with a mix of real and GAN-generated CT lesion images and they rated the realness of each image.

Results

We show that every tested individual radiologist was characterized by unique and systematic perceptual biases; these perceptual biases cannot be simply explained by attentional differences, and they can be observed in different imaging modalities and task settings, suggesting that idiosyncratic biases in medical image perception may widely exist.

Discussion

Characterizing and understanding these biases could be important for many practical settings such as training, pairing readers, and career selection for radiologists. These results may have consequential implications for many other fields as well, where individual observers are the linchpins for life-altering perceptual decisions.

Black adolescents' appearance concerns, depressive symptoms, and self-objectification: Exploring the roles of gender and ethnic-racial identity commitment

There is a dearth of research examining Black adolescents' body image, with even less work examining gender differences or the influence of ethnic-racial identity (ERI) commitment. It is critical to understand how culturally relevant aspects of appearance-beyond commonly measured ideals such as thinness and muscularity-are particularly relevant to Black adolescents. The present study of Black youth (n = 252; 55% girls, 45% boys, ages 13-18, M_age = 15.5) explored the roles of gender and ERI commitment in the associations between skin tone, hair, and facial satisfaction and appearance esteem, depressive symptomatology, and self-objectification. With a few exceptions, satisfaction with skin tone, hair, and face were significantly associated with higher appearance esteem and lower self-objectification and depressive symptoms, even when controlling for weight and muscle tone satisfaction. Findings were similar across genders, with some associations stronger among Black girls relative to boys. Among youth with higher ERI commitment, associations were stronger between skin tone, hair, and facial satisfaction and some indicators of wellbeing. Findings elucidate the role of culturally relevant appearance concerns of Black adolescents and the potential benefits of ERI commitment. This work can inform culturally sensitive research practices and therapeutic interventions related to Black youth's body image experiences.

Understanding trait impressions from faces

Impressions from faces are made remarkably quickly and they can underpin behaviour in a wide variety of social contexts. Over the last decade many studies have sought to trace the links between facial cues and social perception and behaviour. One such body of work has shown clear overlap between the fields of face perception and social stereotyping by demonstrating a role for conceptual stereotypes in impression formation from faces. We integrate these results involving conceptual influences on impressions with another substantial body of research in visual cognition which demonstrates that much of the variance in impressions can be predicted from perceptual, data-driven models using physical cues in face images. We relate this discussion to the phylogenetic, cultural, individual and developmental origins of facial impressions and define priority research questions for the field including investigating non-WEIRD cultures, tracking the developmental trajectory of impressions and determining the malleability of impression formation.

Statistical image properties predict aesthetic ratings in abstract paintings created by neural style transfer

Artificial intelligence has emerged as a powerful computational tool to create artworks. One application is Neural Style Transfer, which allows to transfer the style of one image, such as a painting, onto the content of another image, such as a photograph. In the present study, we ask how Neural Style Transfer affects objective image properties and how beholders perceive the novel (style-transferred) stimuli. In order to focus on the subjective perception of artistic style, we minimized the confounding effect of cognitive processing by eliminating all representational content from the input images. To this aim, we transferred the styles of 25 diverse abstract paintings onto 150 colored random-phase patterns with six different Fourier spectral slopes. This procedure resulted in 150 style-transferred stimuli. We then computed eight statistical image properties (complexity, self-similarity, edge-orientation entropy, variances of neural network features, and color statistics) for each image. In a rating study, we asked participants to evaluate the images along three aesthetic dimensions (Pleasing, Harmonious, and Interesting). Results demonstrate that not only objective image properties, but also subjective aesthetic preferences transferred from the original artworks onto the style-transferred images. The image properties of the style-transferred images explain 50 – 69% of the variance in the ratings. In the multidimensional space of statistical image properties, participants considered style-transferred images to be more Pleasing and Interesting if they were closer to a “sweet spot” where traditional Western paintings (JenAesthetics dataset) are represented. We conclude that NST is a useful tool to create novel artistic stimuli that preserve the image properties of the input style images. In the novel stimuli, we found a strong relationship between statistical image properties and subjective ratings, suggesting a prominent role of perceptual processing in the aesthetic evaluation of abstract images.

Do we enjoy what we sense and perceive? A dissociation between aesthetic appreciation and basic perception of environmental objects or events

This integrative review rearticulates the notion of human aesthetics by critically appraising the conventional definitions, offerring a new, more comprehensive definition, and identifying the fundamental components associated with it. It intends to advance holistic understanding of the notion by differentiating aesthetic perception from basic perceptual recognition, and by characterizing these concepts from the perspective of information processing in both visual and nonvisual modalities. To this end, we analyze the dissociative nature of information processing in the brain, introducing a novel local-global integrative model that differentiates aesthetic processing from basic perceptual processing. This model builds on the current state of the art in visual aesthetics as well as newer propositions about nonvisual aesthetics. This model comprises two analytic channels: aesthetics-only channel and perception-to-aesthetics channel. The aesthetics-only channel primarily involves restricted local processing for quality or richness (e.g., attractiveness, beauty/prettiness, elegance, sublimeness, catchiness, hedonic value) analysis, whereas the perception-to-aesthetics channel involves global/extended local processing for basic feature analysis, followed by restricted local processing for quality or richness analysis. We contend that aesthetic processing operates independently of basic perceptual processing, but not independently of cognitive processing. We further conjecture that there might be a common faculty, labeled as aesthetic cognition faculty, in the human brain for all sensory aesthetics albeit other parts of the brain can also be activated because of basic sensory processing prior to aesthetic processing, particularly during the operation of the second channel. This generalized model can account not only for simple and pure aesthetic experiences but for partial and complex aesthetic experiences as well.

Judgments of mathematical beauty are resistant to revision through external opinion

We here address the question of the extent to which judgments of mathematical beauty (which we categorize as biological beauty) are resistant to revision through external opinion. A total of 100 mathematicians of different national and ethnic origins were asked to rate 60 mathematical equations for their beauty; after being presented a fictitious "expert rating," they were asked to re-rate the same equations. Results showed that the judgments of mathematical beauty had a high level of resistance to external opinion. This is in line with the resistance to revision of a judgments for other categories of biological beauty.

Quantifying the heritability of belief formation

Individual differences in behaviour, traits and mental-health are partially heritable. Traditionally, studies have focused on quantifying the heritability of high-order characteristics, such as happiness or education attainment. Here, we quantify the degree of heritability of lower-level mental processes that likely contribute to complex traits and behaviour. In particular, we quantify the degree of heritability of cognitive and affective factors that contribute to the generation of beliefs about risk, which drive behavior in domains ranging from finance to health. Monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs completed a belief formation task. We first show that beliefs about risk are associated with vividness of imagination, affective evaluation and learning abilities. We then demonstrate that the genetic contribution to individual differences in these processes range between 13.5 and 39%, with affect evaluation showing a particular robust heritability component. These results provide clues to which mental factors may be driving the heritability component of beliefs formation, which in turn contribute to the heritability of complex traits.

A generalised semantic cognition account of aesthetic experience

Given that aesthetic experiences typically involve extracting meaning from environment, we believe that semantic cognition research has much to offer the field of neuroaesthetics. In the current paper, we propose a generalised framework that is inspired by the semantic cognition literature and that treats aesthetic experience as just one example of how meaning accumulates. According to our framework, aesthetic experiences are underpinned by the same cognitive and brain systems that are involved in deriving meaning from the environment in general, such as modality-specific conceptual representations and controlled processes for retrieving the appropriate type of information. Our generalised semantic cognition view of aesthetic experience has substantial implications for theory development: it leads to novel, falsifiable predictions and it reconfigures foundational assumptions regarding the structure of the cognitive and brain systems that may be involved in aesthetic experiences.

On the etiology of aesthetic chills: a behavioral genetic study

Aesthetic chills, broadly defined as a somatic marker of peak emotional-hedonic responses, are experienced by individuals across a variety of human cultures. Yet individuals vary widely in the propensity of feeling them. These individual differences have been studied in relation to demographics, personality, and neurobiological and physiological factors, but no study to date has explored the genetic etiological sources of variation. To partition genetic and environmental sources of variation in the propensity of feeling aesthetic chills, we fitted a biometrical genetic model to data from 14,127 twins (from 8995 pairs), collected by the Netherlands Twin Register. Both genetic and unique environmental factors accounted for variance in aesthetic chills, with heritability estimated at 0.36 ([0.33, 0.39] 95% CI). We found females more prone than males to report feeling aesthetic chills. However, a test for genotype x sex interaction did not show evidence that heritability differs between sexes. We thus show that the propensity of feeling aesthetic chills is not shaped by nurture alone, but it also reflects underlying genetic propensities.

The Role of Art Expertise and Symmetry on Facial Aesthetic Preferences

Humans, like other species, have a preference for symmetrical visual stimuli, a preference that is influenced by factors such as age, sex, and artistic training. In particular, artistic training seems to decrease the rejection of asymmetry in abstract stimuli. However, it is not known whether the same trend would be observed in relation to concrete stimuli such as human faces. In this article, we investigated the role of expertise in visual arts, music, and dance, in the perceived beauty and attractiveness of human faces with different asymmetries. With this objective, the beauty and attractiveness of 100 photographs of faces with different degrees of asymmetry were evaluated by 116 participants with different levels of art expertise. Expertise in visual arts and dance was associated with the extent to which facial asymmetry influenced the beauty ratings assigned to the faces. The greater the art expertise in visual arts and dance, the more indifferent to facial asymmetry the participant was to evaluate beauty. The same effect was not found for music and neither for attractiveness ratings. These findings are important to help understand how face aesthetic evaluation is modified by artistic training and the difference between beauty and attractiveness evaluations.

Face-evoked thoughts

The thoughts that come to mind when viewing a face depend partly on the face and partly on the viewer. This basic interaction raises the question of how much common ground there is in face-evoked thoughts, and how this compares to viewers' expectations. Previous analyses have focused on early perceptual stages of face processing. Here we take a more expansive approach that encompasses later associative stages. In Experiment 1 (free association), participants exhibited strong egocentric bias, greatly overestimating the extent to which other people's thoughts resembled their own. In Experiment 2, we show that viewers' familiarity with a face can be decoded from their face-evoked thoughts. In Experiment 3 (person association), participants reported who came to mind when viewing a face-a task that emphasises connections in a social network rather than nodes. Here again, viewers' estimates of common ground exceeded actual common ground by a large margin. We assume that a face elicits much the same thoughts in other people as it does in us, but that is a mistake. In this respect, we are more isolated than we think.

Two graphs walk into a bar: Readout-based measurement reveals the Bar-Tip Limit error, a common, categorical misinterpretation of mean bar graphs

How do viewers interpret graphs that abstract away from individual-level data to present only summaries of data such as means, intervals, distribution shapes, or effect sizes? Here, focusing on the mean bar graph as a prototypical example of such an abstracted presentation, we contribute three advances to the study of graph interpretation. First, we distill principles for Measurement of Abstract Graph Interpretation (MAGI principles) to guide the collection of valid interpretation data from viewers who may vary in expertise. Second, using these principles, we create the Draw Datapoints on Graphs (DDoG) measure, which collects drawn readouts (concrete, detailed, visuospatial records of thought) as a revealing window into each person's interpretation of a given graph. Third, using this new measure, we discover a common, categorical error in the interpretation of mean bar graphs: the Bar-Tip Limit (BTL) error. The BTL error is an apparent conflation of mean bar graphs with count bar graphs. It occurs when the raw data are assumed to be limited by the bar-tip, as in a count bar graph, rather than distributed across the bar-tip, as in a mean bar graph. In a large, demographically diverse sample, we observe the BTL error in about one in five persons; across educational levels, ages, and genders; and despite thoughtful responding and relevant foundational knowledge. The BTL error provides a case-in-point that simplification via abstraction in graph design can risk severe, high-prevalence misinterpretation. The ease with which our readout-based DDoG measure reveals the nature and likely cognitive mechanisms of the BTL error speaks to the value of both its readout-based approach and the MAGI principles that guided its creation. We conclude that mean bar graphs may be misinterpreted by a large portion of the population, and that enhanced measurement tools and strategies, like those introduced here, can fuel progress in the scientific study of graph interpretation.

Predicting attractiveness from face parts reveals multiple covarying cues

In most studies of facial attractiveness perception, judgments are based on the whole face images. Here we investigated how attractiveness judgments from parts of faces compare to perceived attractiveness of the whole face, and to each other. We manipulated the extent and regions of occlusion, where either the left/right or the top/bottom half of the face was occluded. We also further segmented the face into relatively small horizontal regions involving the forehead, eyes, nose, or mouth. The results demonstrated the correlated nature of face regions, such that an attractiveness judgment for one face part can be highly predictive of the attractiveness of the whole face or the other parts. The left/right half of the face created more accurate predictions than the top/bottom half. Judgments involving a larger area of the face (i.e., left/right or top/bottom halves) produced more accurate predictions than those derived from smaller regions, such as the eyes or the mouth alone, but even the smallest and most featureless region investigated (the forehead) provided useful information. The correlated nature of the attractiveness of face parts shows that perceived attractiveness is determined by multiple covarying cues that the visual system can exploit to determine attractiveness from a single glance.

Aesthetic Delusions: An Investigation into the Role of Rapid Visual Adaptation in Aesthetic Practice

Background

To date, the process of adaptation in the setting of aesthetic medicine has not been investigated. The combination of complex advanced feedback in the current intense social media milieu, in conjunction with easily accessible and effective aesthetic treatments, has produced pockets of overtreated patients and over-zealous practitioners. We examine whether aesthetic assessments of attractiveness and what appears natural can be distorted by the cognitive process of adaptation.

Methods

Forty-eight female participants were exposed to photographs of female faces in whom lip fullness had been strongly under- or over-exaggerated, while remaining within the bounds of natural appearing lips. Before and after evaluation of the exaggerated images, participants were asked to rate an alternative set of faces in terms of attractiveness (reflecting direct assessment of effective beauty impression) and naturalness (reflecting indirect assessment of beauty norms). The evaluation set consisted of six base faces that had been digitally altered to create a systematically varying 11 step set of lip sizes from extremely thin, to the original version, to very full.

Results

Second-order polynomial fits indicated clear shifts of the subjects’ facial aesthetic assessments towards the specific lip fullness of the adaptors. In contrast, such adaptions were not found for ratings of face naturalness. In contrast to research demonstrating mathematical foundations and unchanging rules governing perceptions of beauty, we show that simple viewing of exaggerated feature morphologies can rapidly result in recalibration of a person’s assessment of attractiveness.

Conclusion

This paper provides evidence that facial attractiveness is fluid, and that there are psychological mechanisms that cause an aesthetic bias. Over-exposure to exaggerated features can lead to significant changes to a person’s ideas of attractiveness.

The effect of aging on facial attractiveness: An empirical and computational investigation

How does aging affect facial attractiveness? We tested the hypothesis that people find older faces less attractive than younger faces, and furthermore, that these aging effects are modulated by the age and sex of the perceiver and by the specific kind of attractiveness judgment being made. Using empirical and computational network science methods, we confirmed that with increasing age, faces are perceived as less attractive. This effect was less pronounced in judgments made by older than younger and middle-aged perceivers, and more pronounced by men (especially for female faces) than women. Attractive older faces were perceived as elegant more than beautiful or gorgeous. Furthermore, network analyses revealed that older faces were more similar in attractiveness and were segregated from younger faces. These results indicate that perceivers tend to process older faces categorically when making attractiveness judgments. Attractiveness is not a monolithic construct. It varies by age, sex, and the dimensions of attractiveness being judged.

From Visual Perception to Aesthetic Appeal: Brain Responses to Aesthetically Appealing Natural Landscape Movies

During aesthetically appealing visual experiences, visual content provides a basis for computation of affectively tinged representations of aesthetic value. How this happens in the brain is largely unexplored. Using engaging video clips of natural landscapes, we tested whether cortical regions that respond to perceptual aspects of an environment (e.g., spatial layout, object content and motion) were directly modulated by rated aesthetic appeal. Twenty-four participants watched a series of videos of natural landscapes while being scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and reported both continuous ratings of enjoyment (during the videos) and overall aesthetic judgments (after each video). Although landscape videos engaged a greater expanse of high-level visual cortex compared to that observed for images of landscapes, independently localized category-selective visual regions (e.g., scene-selective parahippocampal place area and motion-selective hMT+) were not significantly modulated by aesthetic appeal. Rather, a whole-brain analysis revealed modulations by aesthetic appeal in ventral (collateral sulcus) and lateral (middle occipital sulcus, posterior middle temporal gyrus) clusters that were adjacent to scene and motion selective regions. These findings suggest that aesthetic appeal per se is not represented in well-characterized feature- and category-selective regions of visual cortex. Rather, we propose that the observed activations reflect a local transformation from a feature-based visual representation to a representation of "elemental affect," computed through information-processing mechanisms that detect deviations from an observer's expectations. Furthermore, we found modulation by aesthetic appeal in subcortical reward structures but not in regions of the default-mode network (DMN) nor orbitofrontal cortex, and only weak evidence for associated changes in functional connectivity. In contrast to other visual aesthetic domains, aesthetically appealing interactions with natural landscapes may rely more heavily on comparisons between ongoing stimulation and well-formed representations of the natural world, and less on top-down processes for resolving ambiguities or assessing self-relevance.

Young children learn first impressions of faces through social referencing

Previous research has demonstrated that the tendency to form first impressions from facial appearance emerges early in development. We examined whether social referencing is one route through which these consistent first impressions are acquired. In Study 1, we show that 5- to 7-year-old children are more likely to choose a target face previously associated with positive non-verbal signals as more trustworthy than a face previously associated with negative non-verbal signals. In Study 2, we show that children generalise this learning to novel faces who resemble those who have previously been the recipients of positive non-verbal behaviour. Taken together, these data show one means through which individuals within a community could acquire consistent, and potentially inaccurate, first impressions of others faces. In doing so, they highlight a route through which cultural transmission of first impressions can occur.

Facial attractiveness and preference of sexual dimorphism: A comparison across five populations

Despite intensive research, evolutionary psychology has not yet reached a consensus regarding the association between sexual dimorphism and attractiveness. This study examines associations between perceived and morphological facial sexual dimorphism and perceived attractiveness in samples from five distant countries (Cameroon, Colombia, Czechia, Iran and Turkey). We also examined possible moderating effects of skin lightness, averageness, age, body mass and facial width. Our results suggest that in all samples, women's perceived femininity was positively related to their perceived attractiveness. Women found perceived masculinity in men attractive only in Czechia and Colombia, two distant populations. The association between perceived sexual dimorphism and attractiveness is thus potentially universal only for women. Across populations, morphological sexual dimorphism and averageness are not universally associated with either perceived facial sexual dimorphism or attractiveness. With our exploratory approach, results highlight the need for control of which measure of sexual dimorphism is used (perceived or measured) because they affect perceived attractiveness differently. Morphological averageness and sexual dimorphism are not good predictors of perceived attractiveness. It is noted that future studies should use samples from multiple populations to allow for identification of specific effects of local environmental and socioeconomic conditions on preferred traits in unmanipulated local facial stimuli.

Modeling individual preferences reveals that face beauty is not universally perceived across cultures

Facial attractiveness confers considerable advantages in social interactions,^1,2 with preferences likely reflecting psychobiological mechanisms shaped by natural selection. Theories of universal beauty propose that attractive faces comprise features that are closer to the population average³ while optimizing sexual dimorphism.⁴ However, emerging evidence questions this model as an accurate representation of facial attractiveness,5, 6, 7 including representing the diversity of beauty preferences within and across cultures.8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Here, we demonstrate that Western Europeans (WEs) and East Asians (EAs) evaluate facial beauty using culture-specific features, contradicting theories of universality. With a data-driven method, we modeled, at both the individual and group levels, the attractive face features of young females (25 years old) in two matched groups each of 40 young male WE and EA participants. Specifically, we generated a broad range of same- and other-ethnicity female faces with naturally varying shapes and complexions. Participants rated each on attractiveness. We then reverse correlated the face features that drive perception of attractiveness in each participant. From these individual face models, we reconstructed a facial attractiveness representation space that explains preference variations. We show that facial attractiveness is distinct both from averageness and from sexual dimorphism in both cultures. Finally, we disentangled attractive face features into those shared across cultures, culture specific, and specific to individual participants, thereby revealing their diversity. Our results have direct theoretical and methodological impact for representing diversity in social perception and for the design of culturally and ethnically sensitive socially interactive digital agents.

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We modeled individual preferences for attractive faces in two cultures

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Attractive face features differ from the face average and sexual dimorphism

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Instead, culture and individual preferences shape attractive face features

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Attractive face features from a culture are used to judge other-ethnicity faces

Instrumental learning in social interactions: Trait learning from faces and voices

Recent research suggests that reinforcement learning may underlie trait formation in social interactions with faces. The current study investigated whether the same learning mechanisms could be engaged for trait learning from voices. On each trial of a training phase, participants (N = 192) chose from pairs of human or slot machine targets that varied in the (1) reward value and (2) generosity of their payouts. Targets were either auditory (voices or tones; Experiment 1) or visual (faces or icons; Experiment 2) and were presented sequentially before payout feedback. A test phase measured participant choice behaviour, and a post-test recorded their target preference ratings. For auditory targets, we found a significant effect of reward only on target choices, but saw higher preference ratings for more generous humans and slot machines. For visual targets, findings from previous studies were replicated: participants learned about both generosity and reward, but generosity was prioritised in the human condition. These findings provide one of the first demonstrations of reinforcement learning of reward with auditory stimuli in a social learning task, but suggest that the use of auditory targets does alter learning in this paradigm. Conversely, reinforcement learning of reward and trait information with visual stimuli remains intact even when sequential presentation introduces a delay in feedback.

Cross-cultural perception of female facial appearance: A multi-ethnic and multi-centre study

Humans extract and use information from the face in assessments of physical appearance. Previous research indicates high agreement about facial attractiveness within and between cultures. However, the use of a narrow age range for facial stimuli, limitations due to unidirectional cross-cultural comparisons, and technical challenges have prevented definitive conclusions about the universality of face perception. In the present study, we imaged the faces of women aged 20 to 69 years in five locations (China, France, India, Japan, and South Africa) and secured age, attractiveness, and health assessments on continuous scales (0-100) from female and male raters (20-66 years) within and across ethnicity. In total, 180 images (36 of each ethnicity) were assessed by 600 raters (120 of each ethnicity), recruited in study centres in the five locations. Linear mixed model analysis revealed main and interaction effects of assessor ethnicity, assessor gender, and photographed participant ("face") ethnicity on age, attractiveness, and health assessments. Thus, differences in judgments of female facial appearance depend on the ethnicity of the photographed person, the ethnicity of the assessor, and whether the assessor is female or male. Facial age assessments correlated negatively with attractiveness and health assessments. Collectively, these findings provide evidence of cross-cultural variation in assessments of age, and even more of attractiveness, and health, indicating plasticity in perception of female facial appearance across cultures, although the decline in attractiveness and health assessments with age is universally found.

Progress and Promise in Neuroaesthetics

We review progress and highlight open questions in neuroaesthetics. We argue that computational methods can provide mechanistic insight into how aesthetic judgments are formed, while advocating for deeper collaboration between neuroscientists studying aesthetics and those in the arts and humanities.

Quantifying idiosyncratic and shared contributions to judgment

Identifying relative idiosyncratic and shared contributions to judgments is a fundamental challenge to the study of human behavior, yet there is no established method for estimating these contributions. Using edge cases of stimuli varying in intrarater reliability and interrater agreement-faces (high on both), objects (high on the former, low on the latter), and complex patterns (low on both)-we showed that variance component analyses (VCAs) accurately captured the psychometric properties of the data (Study 1). Simulations showed that the VCA generalizes to any arbitrary continuous rating and that both sample and stimulus set size affect estimate precision (Study 2). Generally, a minimum of 60 raters and 30 stimuli provided reasonable estimates within our simulations. Furthermore, VCA estimates stabilized given more than two repeated measures, consistent with the finding that both intrarater reliability and interrater agreement increased nonlinearly with repeated measures (Study 3). The VCA provides a rigorous examination of where variance lies in data, can be implemented using mixed models with crossed random effects, and is general enough to be useful in any judgment domain in which agreement and disagreement are important to quantify and in which multiple raters independently rate multiple stimuli.

The differential power of extraneous influences to modify aesthetic judgments of biological and artifactual stimuli

We addressed the question of the extent to which external information is capable of modifying aesthetic ratings given to two different categories of stimuli-images of faces (which belong to the biological category) and those of abstract paintings with no recognizable objects (which sit in the artifactual category). A total of 51 participants of different national origins rated the beauty of both sets of stimuli, indicating the certainty of their rating; they then re-rated them after being exposed to the opinions of others on their aesthetic status. Of these 51 participants, 42 who met our criteria were selected to complete the experiment. The results showed that individuals were less prone to modifying their ratings of stimuli belonging to the biological category compared to those falling into the artifactual category. We discuss this finding in light of our theoretical Bayesian-Laplacian model and on the evidence given by previous empirical research.

Seeking the "Beauty Center" in the Brain: A Meta-Analysis of fMRI Studies of Beautiful Human Faces and Visual Art

During the past two decades, cognitive neuroscientists have sought to elucidate the common neural basis of the experience of beauty. Still, empirical evidence for such common neural basis of different forms of beauty is not conclusive. To address this question, we performed an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis on the existing neuroimaging studies of beauty appreciation of faces and visual art by nonexpert adults (49 studies, 982 participants, meta-data are available at https://osf.io/s9xds/ ). We observed that perceiving these two forms of beauty activated distinct brain regions: While the beauty of faces convergently activated the left ventral striatum, the beauty of visual art convergently activated the anterior medial prefrontal cortex (aMPFC). However, a conjunction analysis failed to reveal any common brain regions for the beauty of visual art and faces. The implications of these results are discussed.

[Change of perception of aged male attractiveness by conventional or male facelift: 3D simulation study of a new facelift concept for men]

BACKGROUND

 Facelift is now the fourth most common aesthetic procedure in men. Facial ageing is very different in men and women. Therefore, individual techniques are used since a uniform concept for the surgical facelift in men does not exist. This study aims to evaluate a gender-specific facelift concept especially developed for men.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

 Women and men (n = 10 each) were subjected to a three-dimensional face scan and a subsequent simulation of a V-shaped lift vector (standard lift) and a new facelift concept especially for men in a double T shape (male lift). In an online survey with 262 participants, the simulated as well as the unchanged images were presented and the attributes masculinity, femininity, attractiveness and youthfulness were queried. Statistical models were used to identify attributes of lifting as well as other factors and differences between the simulations.

RESULTS

 Facelift changes are generally associated with a significant improvement in the attributes of youthfulness and attractiveness compared with unchanged control faces. As expected, a male lift leads to masculinisation, while a standard lift leads to feminisation, regardless of the sex of the subjects. The male lift led to higher values for the attribute attractiveness in male subjects, as did the standard lift in female subjects. The standard lift developed for women is indeed more suitable for women and is associated with a significantly higher probability for the attribute youthfulness, whereas this is not the case in the newly introduced male lift concept.

CONCLUSION

 The new facelift concept for male patients is significantly associated with masculinity and attractiveness, while the standard lift suitable for women is associated with significantly higher evaluations of femininity and youthfulness. The results of the SIMALIFT study are the first evidence of the need for a more differentiated, gender-specific approach to facelifting.

Tracking cortical representations of facial attractiveness using time-resolved representational similarity analysis

When we see a face, we rapidly form an impression of its attractiveness. Here, we investigated how rapidly representations of facial attractiveness emerge in the human brain. In an EEG experiment, participants viewed 100 face photographs and rated them for their attractiveness. Using time-resolved representational similarity analysis on the EEG data, we reveal representations of facial attractiveness after 150-200 ms of cortical processing. Interestingly, we show that these representations are related to individual participants' personal attractiveness judgments, suggesting that already early perceptual representations of facial attractiveness convey idiosyncratic attractiveness preferences. Further, we show that these early representations are genuinely related to attractiveness, as they are neither explained by other high-level face attributes, such as face sex or age, nor by features extracted by an artificial deep neural network model of face processing. Together, our results demonstrate early, individually specific, and genuine representations of facial attractiveness, which may underlie fast attractiveness judgments.

Will the patient's double eyelid shape be like that of the surgeon performing the procedure? A study of surgeons' aesthetics in East Asian Blepharoplasty

BACKGROUND

No reports of the potential areas of surgeons' aesthetics in blepharoplasty.

AIMS

To explore the association between the surgeons' own double eyelid morphology and their aesthetics and surgical outcome.

METHODS

An investigation of 1605 patients was carried collecting the data of double eyelid shape, based on which to propose a preliminary double eyelid classification for analyzing the aesthetics of surgeons. Ten double eyelid surgical cases were randomly collected from each surgeon according to the inclusion criteria, whose double eyelid shape, ideal shape, the selection tendency of surgical approach, most cared factor during surgery, and design concept of eyelid shape were collected. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed to assess the association between participants' double eyelid shape, aesthetics, and blepharoplasty outcome.

RESULTS

Fifty-three double eyelid surgeons were enrolled for study, whose double eyelids shapes mostly were obviously fan-shaped (37.74%) and low-parallel eyelid (26.42%), and the ideal shapes were obviously fan-shaped (41.51%) and high-parallel eyelid (24.53%). 54.72% of the subjects preferred to use the full-incisional method. 45.28% cared for long-term outcome most. Regarding blepharoplasty outcome style, 49.06% of the subjects preferred obviously fan-shaped type and 24.53% for high-parallel type. SEM showed that aesthetics rank increased by 0.692 points for surgeons' shape (P < .001), and surgical outcome rank increased by 0.861 points for aesthetics (P < .001). However, their eyelid shape had no direct contribution to surgical outcome (P = .96).

CONCLUSIONS

The findings indicated that surgeons' double eyelid shape positively affected their aesthetics, which affected their surgical outcomes further, but their double eyelid shape failed to affect the surgical outcomes directly.

A Theoretical Framework for How We Learn Aesthetic Values

How do we come to like the things that we do? Each one of us starts from a relatively similar state at birth, yet we end up with vastly different sets of aesthetic preferences. These preferences go on to define us both as individuals and as members of our cultures. Therefore, it is important to understand how aesthetic preferences form over our lifetimes. This poses a challenging problem: to understand this process, one must account for the many factors at play in the formation of aesthetic values and how these factors influence each other over time. A general framework based on basic neuroscientific principles that can also account for this process is needed. Here, we present such a framework and illustrate it through a model that accounts for the trajectories of aesthetic values over time. Our framework is inspired by meta-analytic data of neuroimaging studies of aesthetic appraisal. This framework incorporates effects of sensory inputs, rewards, and motivational states. Crucially, each one of these effects is probabilistic. We model their interactions under a reinforcement-learning circuitry. Simulations of this model and mathematical analysis of the framework lead to three main findings. First, different people may develop distinct weighing of aesthetic variables because of individual variability in motivation. Second, individuals from different cultures and environments may develop different aesthetic values because of unique sensory inputs and social rewards. Third, because learning is stochastic, stemming from probabilistic sensory inputs, motivations, and rewards, aesthetic values vary in time. These three theoretical findings account for different lines of empirical research. Through our study, we hope to provide a general and unifying framework for understanding the various aspects involved in the formation of aesthetic values over time.

Individual differences in trust evaluations are shaped mostly by environments, not genes

People evaluate a stranger's trustworthiness from their facial features in a fraction of a second, despite common advice "not to judge a book by its cover." Evaluations of trustworthiness have critical and widespread social impact, predicting financial lending, mate selection, and even criminal justice outcomes. Consequently, understanding how people perceive trustworthiness from faces has been a major focus of scientific inquiry, and detailed models explain how consensus impressions of trustworthiness are driven by facial attributes. However, facial impression models do not consider variation between observers. Here, we develop a sensitive test of trustworthiness evaluation and use it to document substantial, stable individual differences in trustworthiness impressions. Via a twin study, we show that these individual differences are largely shaped by variation in personal experience, rather than genes or shared environments. Finally, using multivariate twin modeling, we show that variation in trustworthiness evaluation is specific, dissociating from other key facial evaluations of dominance and attractiveness. Our finding that variation in facial trustworthiness evaluation is driven mostly by personal experience represents a rare example of a core social perceptual capacity being predominantly shaped by a person's unique environment. Notably, it stands in sharp contrast to variation in facial recognition ability, which is driven mostly by genes. Our study provides insights into the development of the social brain, offers a different perspective on disagreement in trust in wider society, and motivates new research into the origins and potential malleability of face evaluation, a critical aspect of human social cognition.

Perceived attractiveness of Czech faces across 10 cultures: Associations with sexual shape dimorphism, averageness, fluctuating asymmetry, and eye color

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.

The Esthetic Difference of Chinese Beauty Evaluated by Two Different Human Races Based on Three-Dimensional Average Face Analysis

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text

Purpose:

The aim of this study was to establish a new method of facial soft tissue analysis based on 3dMDface system and to find the different esthetic preferences of Chinese beauties from the Chinese and Indian evaluators perspective.

Methods:

Three-dimensional facial images of 242 females and 168 males were evaluated and ranked by 8 Chinese and nine Indians using a 10-point visual analog scale (VAS). Total 120 subjects in 2 panels (from Chinese perspective and Indian perspective) including 30 male and 30 female faces with top 30 scores were analyzed with the “average face” method respectively. Then 17 linear measurements, 13 curve measurements and 14 ratios of 4 average faces were calculated and compared with the divine proportion.

Results:

Distinct differences were founded based on the average face analysis. Similar total facial types were preferred by both Chinese and Indian evaluators, while Indian evaluators preferred a wider male face with a protrusive lower lip. Delicate noses with lower nose ridge but protrusive lower lips in females were more acceptable by Indian evaluators. The differences of linear measurements were limited in 2.0 mm except the facial width, lower facial width, upper facial height and forehead height while curve measurements differ distinctly as the table shows. No ratios equal to the divine proportion were founded.

Conclusion:

The 3D Average face based on stereophotogrammetry is a feasible method to analyze the facial characters and discrepancy of esthetic preferences. Chinese and Indian evaluators have some certain differences when judging beauties. Attractive faces have some certain ratios but not the divine proportion.

Continuous ratings of movie watching reveal idiosyncratic dynamics of aesthetic enjoyment

Visual aesthetic experiences unfold over time, yet most of our understanding of such experiences comes from experiments using static visual stimuli and measuring static responses. Here, we investigated the temporal dynamics of subjective aesthetic experience using temporally extended stimuli (movie clips) in combination with continuous behavioral ratings. Two groups of participants, a rate group (n = 25) and a view group (n = 25), watched 30-second video clips of landscapes and dance performances in test and retest blocks. The rate group reported continuous ratings while watching the videos, with an overall aesthetic judgment at the end of each video, in both test and retest blocks. The view group, however, passively watched the videos in the test block, reporting only an overall aesthetic judgment at the end of each clip. In the retest block, the view group reported both continuous and overall judgments. When comparing the two groups, we found that the task of making continuous ratings did not influence overall ratings or agreement across participants. In addition, the degree of temporal variation in continuous ratings over time differed substantially by observer (from slower “integrators” to “fast responders”), but less so by video. Reliability of continuous ratings across repeated exposures was in general high, but also showed notable variance across participants. Together, these results show that temporally extended stimuli produce aesthetic experiences that are not the same from person to person, and that continuous behavioral ratings provide a reliable window into the temporal dynamics of such aesthetic experiences while not materially altering the experiences themselves.

Best-worst scaling improves measurement of first impressions

A common goal in psychological research is the measurement of subjective impressions, such as first impressions of faces. These impressions are commonly measured using Likert ratings. Although these ratings are simple to administer, they are associated with response issues that can limit reliability. Here we examine best-worst scaling (BWS), a forced-choice method, as a potential alternative to Likert ratings for measuring participants' facial first impressions. We find that at the group level, BWS scores correlated almost perfectly with Likert scores, indicating that the two methods measure the same impressions. However, at the individual participant level BWS outperforms Likert ratings, both in terms of ability to predict preferences in a third task, and in terms of test-retest reliability. These benefits highlight the power of BWS, particularly for use in individual differences research.

Speed of person perception affects immediate and ongoing aesthetic evaluation

Recent studies have shed light on how aesthetic judgments are formed following presentations lasting less than a second. Meanwhile, dedicated neural mechanisms are understood to enable the rapid detection of human faces, bodies, and actions. On the basis of cognitive studies of: (i) the speed and acuity of person perception, and (ii) preferential attention given to human imagery (e.g., faces and bodies), we hypothesize that the visual detection of humans in portraits increases the magnitude and stability (i.e., similarity to later responses) of aesthetic ratings. Ease of person perception is also expected to elicit longer durations of preferential viewing time, a surplus measure of viewing behavior that should be positively related to subsequent ratings. To test these ideas, we use a set of cubist portraits previously established to be more or less categorizable in terms of the aggregate time required to perceive the depicted person. Using these images, we track aesthetic judgments made following short and unconstrained presentations; in an intervening task, we measure viewing behavior when subjects are able to selectively reveal regions of these images. We find that highly categorizable artworks (those that require less time to identify the figure as human) elicit higher and more predictive aesthetic ratings following 30 ms presentations while also eliciting longer viewing durations. Changes in ratings throughout the task are positively correlated with cumulative viewing time; critically, an image's categorizability level further moderates the strength of this relationship. These results demonstrate that a particular kind of visual object recognition - the recognition of human forms - modulates aesthetic preferences at a glance, subsequent viewing patterns, as well as rating changes over time.

The signature featureTM : A new concept in beauty

Signature Feature^TM (SF) is a universal, yet highly personalized treatment approach to aesthetic facial enhancement that applies to all patients, independent of age, gender, or ethnicity. Its philosophical basis maintains that a patient's beauty is anchored by their most distinctive invariant features (invariant features like eyes, nose, cheekbones, or jawline), and preservation of such signature features should be an essential consideration in any aesthetic treatment plan. The principles central to the SF concept include: (a) identifying the patient's most distinctive signature feature, (b) matching the patient's persona to their signature feature while preserving alignment with their cultural/ethnic aesthetic, and (c) highlighting the patient's signature feature by increasing the "signal-to-noise" ratio between the strength of the signature feature and those factors that may be interfering with it (lines, wrinkles, and sun damage). Every patient represents a new combination of treatment challenges which are not only related to the patient's physical baseline characteristics but also by their subjective self-perceptions. This subjective gray area is where the SF treatment approach has the greatest contribution to the patient's positive self-perception and self-esteem, as the practitioner can help the patient realize their own personal brand through enhancement of their signature feature using an array of aesthetic options.

Do facial first impressions reflect a shared social reality?

Influential facial impression models have repeatedly shown that trustworthiness, youthful-attractiveness, and dominance dimensions subserve a wide variety of first impressions formed from strangers' faces, suggestive of a shared social reality. However, these models are built from impressions aggregated across observers. Critically, recent work has now shown substantial inter-observer differences in facial impressions, raising the important question of whether these dimensional models based on aggregated group data are meaningful at the individual observer level. We addressed this question with a novel case series approach, using factor analyses of ratings of twelve different traits to build individual models of facial impressions for different observers. Strikingly, three dimensions of trustworthiness, youthful/attractiveness, and competence/dominance appeared across the majority of these individual observer models, demonstrating that the dimensional approach is indeed meaningful at the individual level. Nonetheless, we also found differences in the stability of the competence/dominance dimension across observers. Taken together, results suggest that individual differences in impressions arise in the context of a largely common structure that supports a shared social reality.

She Always Steps in the Same River: Similarity Among Long-Term Partners in Their Demographic, Physical, and Personality Characteristics

In mate choice, individuals consider a wide pool of potential partners. It has been found that people have certain preferences, but intraindividual stability of mate choice over time remains little explored. We tested individual consistency of mate choice with respect to a number of demographic, physical, and personality characteristics. Only mothers were recruited for this study, because we wanted to find out not only whether women choose long-term partners with certain characteristics but also whether the father of their child(ren) differs from their other long-term (ex-)partners. Women (N = 537) of 19–45 years of age indicated the demographic, physical (by using image stimuli), and personality characteristics of all of their long-term partners (partners per respondent: mean = 2.98, SD = 1.32). Then we compared the average difference between an individual’s long-term partners with the expected average difference using a permutation test. We also evaluated differences between partners who had children with the participants (fathers) and other long-term partners (non-fathers) using permutation tests and mixed-effect models. Our results revealed that women choose long-term partners consistently with respect to all types of characteristics. Although effect sizes for the individual characteristics were rather weak, maximal cumulative effect size for all characteristics together was high, which suggests that relatively low effect sizes were caused by high variability with low correlations between characteristics, and not by inconsistent mate choice. Furthermore, we found that despite some differences between partners, fathers of participants’ child(ren) do fit their ‘type’. These results suggest that mate choice may be guided by relatively stable but to some degree flexible preferences, which makes mate choice cognitively less demanding and less time-consuming. Further longitudinal studies are needed to confirm this conclusion.