Neural activity associated with enhanced facial attractiveness by cosmetics use

Neurophysiological approaches to exploring emotional responses to cosmetics: a systematic review of the literature

Introduction

This systematic review explores the use of neurophysiological measurements to study emotional responses to cosmetic products. The aim is to evaluate existing literature on these measurements in cosmetics, identify the main findings, highlight methodological challenges, and propose new guidelines for future research.

Method

A systematic search focusing on neurophysiological measures to determine emotions induced by different cosmetic products was carried out in accordance with PRISMA guidelines.

Results

A total of 33 articles identified with the EBSCO database met the inclusion criteria. In all, 10 different measurement tools were used in these articles to assess the emotional effects of cosmetic products.

Discussion

This review emphasizes the complexity of interactions between cosmetics and emotional responses. It underscores the importance of future research with a more holistic approach that couples several physiological measurements. Among them, electrophysiological brain activity shows potential for enhancing understanding of emotional responses related to cosmetic products. Frontal asymmetry, particularly in the alpha frequency band, was often use and frequently linked to positive emotional states, although conflicting evidence exists. Additionally, cardiac activity, specifically the LF/HF ratio, emerges as a promising marker for differentiating between different cosmetic products. However, methodological heterogeneity, present challenges for replicability, generalizability, and complicate data interpretation.

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.

Anatomical variants of acne differ in their impact on social perception

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.

The art of film: Perspective on neural clues to repeated attraction to movie watching

This article about possible neural underpinning of repeated attraction to watching movies is dedicated to the memory of Prof. Eran Zaidel, who made outstanding contributions to neuroscience (and loved watching movies). The film is an art form crafted by multiple artists from diverse fields, contributing specialized skills, talents, and creativity to the final product. Attention-attraction to all artworks has deep biological roots. Movies have been attracting audiences repeatedly ever since they were introduced over 100 years ago. Although countless studies analyzed the nature of the art, the neural underpinning of repeated attraction to viewing movies has been understudied. Here, clues gleaned from non-film findings are proposed. The perspective suggests that functions of the mesolimbic "reward pathway" associated with pleasure and joy, the brain regions responding to facial beauty, to pictorial art aesthetics, and to music listening with increased dopamine levels are all recruited in the repeated attraction.

Makeup applied to facial features increases perceived skin evenness

Facial cosmetics have powerful effects on person perception, such as increasing perceived attractiveness and competence. One specific aspect of facial appearance affected by makeup is apparent skin evenness. Here, we tested the notion that makeup makes facial skin look more homogeneous in part because of changes made not to the skin, but to the facial features. In two studies, participants made ratings of perceived skin evenness. Ratings were made on two versions of the same faces. In one version, no makeup of any kind was worn, while in the other version, the faces had makeup applied only on the features (digitally in Study 1 and by a professional makeup artist in Study 2). Critically, no makeup was worn on the skin in either condition, such that the physical skin homogeneity was identical. Across both studies, skin was rated as appearing more even in the condition with makeup applied to the facial features. This indicates that cosmetics make facial skin appear more even partly due to products applied only to the facial features. These findings are consistent with recent work demonstrating that skin appearance is affected by contrast with adjacent surfaces, possibly via contrast gain control.

Cosmetic makeup enhances facial attractiveness and affective neural responses

Although it is well established that cosmetic makeup enhances perceived facial attractiveness, few studies have examined whether facial makeup modulates neural responses to face images. This study investigated behavioral and attractiveness-related brain responses to self-applied makeup, focusing on the N170, early posterior negativity, P300, and late positive potential components of event-related brain potentials. A total of 77 Japanese women participated in two experiments (N = 34 and 43 for Experiments 1 and 2, respectively). Experiment 1 assessed the effects of self-applied makeup on attractiveness-related event-related potential amplitudes using facial images during a makeup identification task in which makeup was directly relevant to task demands. Experiment 2 examined the effects of self-applied makeup using images of one’s own face and another female’s face when performing a gender classification task, where the presence of makeup had no explicit connection to facial gender classification. In both experiments, faces with makeup were rated as more attractive and elicited more negative early posterior negativity and more positive late positive potential components, regardless of the participant’s own face or another person’s face. These findings suggest that people are spontaneously motivated to pay visual attention to faces with makeup, which supports the idea that makeup adds reward value to the facial appearance of the human. Moreover, neural evidence empirically confirmed that the benefits of makeup are not just limited to how others see your face but also extend to how you see your own face.

Self-Face Activates the Dopamine Reward Pathway without Awareness

The self-face advantage has been demonstrated not only at the supraliminal level, but also at the subliminal level. However, it remains unclear whether subliminal self-face processing involves the same neural networks as those for supraliminal self-face processing. Here, we show that the ventral tegmental area, a center of the dopamine reward pathway, exhibited greater activation to subliminal presentations of the self-face than those of the others’ faces, whereas subliminal presentations of the others’ faces induced activation in the amygdala, which generally responds to unfamiliar information. This self-other difference in brain response was consistently observed even when the facial configuration was modified without changing the shape of the facial parts. The present findings suggest that the dopamine reward pathway is involved in automatic self-advantage in face processing, and the subliminal self-other facial discrimination does not depend on information of the precise facial configuration.

Professional Versus Self-Applied Makeup: Do Makeup Artists Add Value?

While a number of studies have investigated the effects of makeup on how people are perceived, the vast majority have used professionally applied makeup. Here, we tested the hypothesis that professional makeup is more effective than self-applied makeup. We photographed the same target women under controlled conditions wearing no makeup, makeup they applied themselves, and makeup applied by professional makeup artists. Participants rated the faces as appearing more attractive, more feminine, and as having higher status when wearing professional makeup than self-applied makeup. Secondarily, we found that participants perceived the professional makeup as appearing heavier and less natural looking than the self-applied makeup. This work shows that professional makeup is more effective than self-applied makeup and begins to elucidate the nature of makeup artistry. We discuss these findings with respect to personal decoration and physical attractiveness, as well as the notion of artists as experts.

Human brain activity reflecting facial attractiveness from skin reflection

Facial attraction has a great influence on our daily social interactions. Previous studies have mainly focused on the attraction from facial shape and expression. We recently found that faces with radiant skin appear to be more attractive than those with oily-shiny or matte skin. In the present study, we conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and psychological experiments to determine the human brain activity that reflects facial attractiveness modulated by these skin reflection types. In the fMRI experiment, female subjects were shown successive images of unfamiliar female faces with matte, oily-shiny, or radiant skin. The subjects compared each face with the immediately preceding face in terms of attractiveness, age, and skin reflection, all based on the skin. The medial part of the orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) was significantly more active when comparing attractiveness than when comparing skin reflection, suggesting that the mOFC is involved in processing facial attractiveness from skin reflection. In the psychological experiment, attractiveness rating was highest for radiant skin, followed by oily-shiny, and then matte skin. Comparison of the results of these experiments showed that mOFC activation level increased with attractiveness rating. These results suggest that the activation level of the mOFC reflects facial attractiveness from skin reflection.

Neural correlates of beauty retouching to enhance attractiveness of self-depictions in women

Beauty filters, while often employed for retouching photos to appear more attractive on social media, when used in excess cause images to give a distorted impression. The neural mechanisms underlying this change in facial attractiveness according to beauty retouching level remain unknown. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging in women as they viewed photos of their own face or unknown faces that had been retouched at three levels: no, mild, and extreme. The activity in the nucleus accumbens (NA) exhibited a positive correlation with facial attractiveness, whereas amygdala activity showed a negative correlation with attractiveness. Even though the participants rated others' faces as more attractive than their own, the NA showed increased activity only for their mildly retouched own face and the amygdala exhibited greater activation in the others' faces condition than the own face condition. Moreover, amygdala activity was greater for extremely retouched faces than for unretouched or mildly retouched faces for both conditions. Frontotemporal and cortical midline areas showed greater activation for one's own than others' faces, but such self-related activation was absent when extremely retouched. These results suggest that neural activity dynamically switches between the NA and amygdala according to perceived attractiveness of one's face.

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.

Risk Factors Leading to Preference for Extreme Facial Retouching

Young women posting their edited face photographs on social networking sites have become a popular phenomenon, but an excessively retouched face image sometimes gives a strange impression to its viewers. This study investigates what personal characteristics facilitate a bias toward an excessively edited face image. Thirty young Asian women evaluated the attractiveness and naturalness of their face images, which were edited in eight different levels-from mild to excessive-by expanding their eyes and thinning their chin. The mildly retouched face was evaluated as more attractive than the original face, but the excessively retouched face was evaluated as unattractive and unnatural in comparison with the original face. The preferred face edit level was higher for one's own face than for others. Moreover, participants with higher autism-spectrum quotient (AQ) scores were found to regard excessively edited face images as more attractive. The attention to detail subscale of the AQ showed a significant positive correlation with the preferred face edit level. The imagination subscale, on the contrary, showed a significant negative correlation with the preferred face edit level. The pupil response for self-face images was significantly larger than those for others' face images, but this difference decreased with higher AQ scores. This study suggests that an increased attractiveness in their mildly retouched face promotes this behavior of retouching one's own face, but autistic traits, which are insensitive to the creepiness of the excessively retouched face, might pose a potential risk to inducing retouch dependence.

Patterns of Eye Movements When Observers Judge Female Facial Attractiveness

The purpose of the present study is to explore the fixed model for the explicit judgments of attractiveness and infer which features are important to judge the facial attractiveness. Behavioral studies on the perceptual cues for female facial attractiveness implied three potentially important features: averageness, symmetry, and sexual dimorphy. However, these studies did not explained which regions of facial images influence the judgments of attractiveness. Therefore, the present research recorded the eye movements of 24 male participants and 19 female participants as they rated a series of 30 photographs of female facial attractiveness. Results demonstrated the following: (1) Fixation is longer and more frequent on the noses of female faces than on their eyes and mouths (no difference exists between the eyes and the mouth); (2) The average pupil diameter at the nose region is bigger than that at the eyes and mouth (no difference exists between the eyes and the mouth); (3) the number of fixations of male participants was significantly more than female participants. (4) Observers first fixate on the eyes and mouth (no difference exists between the eyes and the mouth) before fixating on the nose area. In general, participants attend predominantly to the nose to form attractiveness judgments. The results of this study add a new dimension to the existing literature on judgment of facial attractiveness. The major contribution of the present study is the finding that the area of the nose is vital in the judgment of facial attractiveness. This finding establish a contribution of partial processing on female facial attractiveness judgments during eye-tracking.

Neural correlates for perception of companion animal photographs

Anthrozoological neuroscience, which we propose as the use of neuroscience techniques to study human-animal interaction, may help to elucidate mechanisms underlying the associated psychological, physiological, and other purported health effects. This preliminary study investigates the neural response to animal photographs in pet owners and non-pet owners, and both attraction and attachment to companion animals as modulators of human perception of companion animal photographs. Thirty male participants, 15 "Pet Owners" (PO) and 15 "Non-Pet Owners" (NPO), viewed photographs of companion animals during functional MRI (fMRI) scans at 3 T and provided ratings of attraction to the animal species represented in the photographs. Fourteen subjects additionally submitted and viewed personal pet photographs during fMRI scans, and completed the Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale (LAPS). PO exhibited greater activation than NPO during the viewing of animal photographs in areas of the insula, and frontal and occipital cortices. Moreover, ratings of attraction to animals correlated positively with neural activation in the cingulate gyrus, precentral gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, and superior temporal gyrus during the viewing of representative photographs. For subjects with household pets, scores on the LAPS correlated positively with neural activation during the viewing of owned pet photographs in the precuneus, cuneus, and superior parietal lobule. Our preliminary findings suggest that human perception of companion animals involve the visual attention network, which may be modulated at the neural level by subjective experiences of attraction or attachment to animals. Our understanding of human-animal interactions through anthrozoological neuroscience may better direct therapeutic applications, such as animal-assisted therapy.

Faces with Light Makeup Are Better Recognized than Faces with Heavy Makeup

Many women wear facial makeup to accentuate their appeal and attractiveness. Makeup may vary from natural (light) to glamorous (heavy), depending of the context of interpersonal situations, an emphasis on femininity, and current societal makeup trends. This study examined how light makeup and heavy makeup influenced attractiveness ratings and facial recognition. In a rating task, 38 Japanese women assigned attractiveness ratings to 36 Japanese female faces with no makeup, light makeup, and heavy makeup (12 each). In a subsequent recognition task, the participants were presented with 36 old and 36 new faces. Results indicated that attractiveness was rated highest for the light makeup faces and lowest for the no makeup faces. In contrast, recognition performance was higher for the no makeup and light make up faces than for the heavy makeup faces. Faces with heavy makeup produced a higher rate of false recognition than did other faces, possibly because heavy makeup creates an impression of the style of makeup itself, rather than the individual wearing the makeup. The present study suggests that light makeup is preferable to heavy makeup in that light makeup does not interfere with individual recognition and gives beholders positive impressions.

Distinct neural correlates of the preference-related valuation of supraliminally and subliminally presented faces

Recent neuroimaging studies have investigated the neural substrates involved in the valuation of supraliminally presented targets and the subsequent preference decisions. However, the neural mechanisms of the valuation of subliminally presented targets, which can guide subsequent preference decisions, remain to be explored. In the present study, we determined whether the neural systems associated with the valuation of supraliminally presented faces are involved in the valuation of subliminally presented faces. The subjects were supraliminally and subliminally presented with faces during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Following fMRI, the subjects were presented with pairs of faces and were asked to choose which face they preferred. We analyzed brain activation by back-sorting the fMRI data according to the subjects' choices. The present study yielded two main findings. First, the ventral striatum and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex predict preferences only for supraliminally presented faces. Second, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex may predict preferences for subliminally presented faces. These findings indicate that neural correlates of the preference-related valuation of faces are dissociable, contingent upon whether the subjects consciously perceive the faces.

Facial Cosmetics Have Little Effect on Attractiveness Judgments Compared with Identity

The vast majority of women in modern societies use facial cosmetics, which modify facial cues to attractiveness. However, the size of this increase remains unclear—how much more attractive are individuals after an application of cosmetics? Here, we utilised a ‘new statistics' approach, calculating the effect size of cosmetics on attractiveness using a within-subjects design, and compared this with the effect size due to identity—that is, the inherent differences in attractiveness between people. Women were photographed with and without cosmetics, and these images were rated for attractiveness by a second group of participants. The proportion of variance in attractiveness explained by identity was much greater than the variance within models due to cosmetics. This result was unchanged after statistically controlling for the perceived amount of cosmetics that each model used. Although cosmetics increase attractiveness, the effect is small, and the benefits of cosmetics may be inflated in everyday thinking.