The Science of Beauty
Daniel Tuesday, April 6, 2010 at 9:55 AM Beauty appears to be something so subjective that it seems odd there is an actual science behind it. Is it not just taste? Or can the feeling of attractiveness be triggered by one or several characteristics and we could answer the question for what we consider beautiful with some mathematical formulas and rational explanations?
“It's a famine of beauty, honey. My eyes are starving for beauty.”
André Leon Talley editor at large (Vogue)
The reason why we find certain things aesthetically pleasing is sometimes not as random or subjective as it seems: in nature & architecture, 1.618 (golden ratio also known as phi ratio) is a prevalent number and there is a good reason why we like the harmonies in western music; scales are generally equal tempered and thus the relationship of a song's notes (their frequencies) all follow the same ratios.
It is then not surprising that there has been research to find out if and how attractiveness of the human face can be measured.
There is a common conception that we're attracted to the archetype of a human being as it indicates fertility. If it is not human looking we're experiencing a healthy repulsion. Human is good as it tells us "Hey this (I mean he or she) is suitable for reproduction".
Creating an an intermediate face by morphing two faces into one, Courtesy of Beautycheck Project, University of Regensburg
1990, psychologists Langlois and Roggman conducted a study about Averageness in order to show that a composite image of many overlaid faces (= the average) is in most cases more attractive than each individual face. There are also studies that suggest that it does not even matter if the faces used to create the composite are from allegedly attractive or unattractive subjects. The more faces are being used to create a composite face, the less pronounced an irregular feature or flaw would show up; so as a result of blending many faces into one individual blemishes and undesired skin complexions disappear. Further, any other irregularity such as asymmetries and large features would blend into a homogenous flawless (as in there is nothing unattractive about it) face.
Beautycheck, a study conducted by the University of Regensburg took this idea further and not only created average faces through digital composites but also tested other characteristics of beauty, body shapes and social perception. Turns out that a characteristic such as symmetry does have a slight impact but not a big one like previous literature suggested. However, childlike features had a fairly strong impact with both genders preferring faces that had at least some degree of "babyfaceness" features mixed in.
Different magnitudes of childlike features, Courtesy of Beautycheck Project, University of Regensburg
One of the concluding results showed that artificial faces scored better than the natural ones they derived from (for both male and female faces). When a number of faces were shown to a modeling agency, 88% of the selected faces (14 out of 16) for potentially being interesting were artificial.
Of course the experiment did not factor in personality which I believe plays an important part when judging beauty. It does however, give us an interesting insight on what we consider beautiful and how much our taste is seemingly influenced by our surrounding and subconscious ideas of evolutionary benefits. Price question: "if you grew up with chimps and would not be in contact with any other human beings for your whole life, what would you be attracted to?"
Reader Comments (8)
Neat post, Daniel. I've heard about the symmetry idea before, but not of averaging.
Thanks Dude! Yeah I thought it was interesting that symmetry actually didn't have that big of an impact at all.
Didn't realize that most of us find "babyfaceness" to be appealing. Beautycheck's study just shows that we are more drawn to artificial beauty. Our standards are quite high when choosing which face is attractive or not.
Linda Flink
Bootcamp
A thought provoking article especially when working with models and potential models-to-be and the fashion industry. What happened to beauty is in the eye of the beholder!
Maia: I agree that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If I think my grandfather is beautiful then no argument can change that.
I felt like showing what science thought about it and how it tries to rationalize it. Regarding the fashion industry and models there is an increased complexity to this topic as it does not cover anything about trends; there is research on this as well comparing the "picture of the ideal woman" a century ago with that of today as well as cross culture comparisons. Of course I could go ahead and write about the negative psychological effect any kind of idealized images have on teenagers but I feel like that has been covered a lot and should go without saying.
I have never thought of it this way, achieving a more beautiful face and features by morphing two beauties together!
Naomi Ford
www.envision-beauty.com
Beauty is definitely a science, and though the idea has been around for ages, we're only know breaking through the mysteries behind it. It's still true that everyone has different tastes in beauty, but these tastes are more similar than we usually recognize.
Brad Kent
Botox Beverly Hills
Interesting post! Disturbing and a tad sad that the artificial faces were preferred. It really is a fascinating subject though ... why is one face preferred over another, and almost universally? Just heard a CBC Radio doc this am that you'll likely find relevant. In it, a study looked a who wins elections and -- yes -- it is based on the candidates' faces.