Physical Attractiveness by Bernhard Fink
Aucun effet de ce type n'a et e observ e pour la variation intra-sujets de la couleur de peau. Le... more Aucun effet de ce type n'a et e observ e pour la variation intra-sujets de la couleur de peau. Les deux exp eriences ont montr e qu'un faible contraste perc ßu entre la couleur des cheveux et la couleur de la peau donnait plus de r eponses positives. CONCLUSION: Nous en concluons que la couleur des cheveux et la couleur de la peau du visage ont toutes deux un effet sur la perception de l'âge, de l' etat de sant e et de la beaut e chez les jeunes femmes et nous pr esentons ces r esultats en r ef erence a la litt erature sur le rôle des cheveux et de la peau dans l' evaluation de l'apparence physique des femmes.
Biological Reviews, Jan 1, 2003
Current theoretical and empirical findings suggest that mate preferences are mainly cued on visua... more Current theoretical and empirical findings suggest that mate preferences are mainly cued on visual, vocal and chemical cues that reveal health including developmental health. Beautiful and irresistible features have evolved numerous times in plants and animals due to sexual selection, and such preferences and beauty standards provide evidence for the claim that human beauty and obsession with bodily beauty are mirrored in analogous traits and tendencies throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. Human beauty standards reflect our evolutionary distant and recent past and emphasize the role of health assessment in mate choice as reflected by analyses of the attractiveness of visual characters of the face and the body, but also of vocal and olfactory signals. Although beauty standards may vary between cultures and between times, we show in this review that the underlying selection pressures, which shaped the standards, are the same. Moreover we show that it is not the content of the standards that show evidence of convergence -it is the rules or how we construct beauty ideals that have universalities across cultures. These findings have implications for medical, social and biological sciences.
Current theoretical and empirical findings suggest that mate preferences are mainly cued on visua... more Current theoretical and empirical findings suggest that mate preferences are mainly cued on visual, vocal and chemical cues that reveal health including developmental health. Beautiful and irresistible features have evolved numerous times in plants and animals due to sexual selection, and such preferences and beauty standards provide evidence for the claim that human beauty and obsession with bodily beauty are mirrored in analogous traits and tendencies throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. Human beauty standards reflect our evolutionary distant and recent past and emphasize the role of health assessment in mate choice as reflected by analyses of the attractiveness of visual characters of the face and the body, but also of vocal and olfactory signals. Although beauty standards may vary between cultures and between times, we show in this review that the underlying selection pressures, which shaped the standards, are the same. Moreover we show that it is not the content of the standards that show evidence of convergence – it is the rules or how we construct beauty ideals that have universalities across cultures. These findings have implications for medical, social and biological sciences.
Résumé Autrefois, l'idée que les standards de la beauté varient de façon arbitraire étaient large... more Résumé Autrefois, l'idée que les standards de la beauté varient de façon arbitraire étaient largement répandue. Toutefois, de récentes recherches suggèrent que l'avis des gens sur l'attrait d'un visage est remarquablement concordant indépendamment de la race, de la nationalité ou de l'âge. Les caractéristiques faciales sont connues pour influencer les jugements sur l'attrait humain et les psychologues de l'évolution suggèrent que ces caractèristiques relèvent toutes de la santé.
Evolution and human …, Jan 1, 2001
Experimenters examining male facial attractiveness have concluded that the attractive male face i... more Experimenters examining male facial attractiveness have concluded that the attractive male face is (1) an average male face, (2) a masculinized male face, or (3) a feminized male face. Others have proposed that symmetry, hormone markers, and the menstrual phase of the observer are important variables that influence male attractiveness. This study was designed to resolve these issues by examining the facial preferences of 42 female volunteers at two different phases of their menstrual cycle. Preferences were measured using a 40-s QuickTime movie (1200 frames) that was designed to systematically modify a facial image from an extreme male to an extreme female configuration. The results indicate that females exhibit (1) a preference for a male face on the masculine side of average, (2) a shift toward a more masculine male face preference during the high-risk phase of their menstrual cycle, and (3) no shift in other facial preferences. An examination of individual differences revealed that women who scored low on a``masculinity'' test (1) showed a larger menstrual shift, (2) had lower self-esteem, and (3) differed in their choice of male faces for dominance and short-term mates. The results are interpreted as support for a hormonal theory of facial attractiveness whereby perceived beauty depends on an interaction between displayed hormone markers and the hormonal state of the viewer. D
Thornhill and Grammer (1999) have argued that certain facial and bodily features in women serve a... more Thornhill and Grammer (1999) have argued that certain facial and bodily features in women serve as 'honest'signals of their reproductive quality and that these features comprise a single condition-dependent ornament. Here we test whether the hypothesis that male faces and bodies also comprise such a sexual ornament. Photographs of faces and bodies (front and back views) of 43 males subjects were rated independently by a total of 78 female volunteers in terms of 'attractiveness','masculinity', and 'dominance'.
Human physical attractiveness is supposed to reflect developmental stability (i.e. the
ability o... more Human physical attractiveness is supposed to reflect developmental stability (i.e. the
ability of individuals to maintain stable development of their morphology under a given
environmental condition) and physiological status. Hence, evolutionary psychologists have
suggested that appearance may not only reveal so called ‘honest signals’ but even comprise a
single ornament of mate value. However, it is still a matter of debate which physical features
affect the ratings of female beauty, and whether these features are truly associated with aspects
of developmental and physiological status. Here we present morphometric data of
images of faces and bodies from 92 women together with ratings of attractiveness by 60
men. A total of 101 somatometric landmarks were digitized as two-dimensional coordinates
from three views: facial, front and back full-body view. These image sets were analyzed
separately by means of geometric morphometric methodology (GMM). Attractiveness ratings
of the face and body were significantly associated with both (i) the amount of fluctuating
asymmetry (as a measure of developmental stability), and (ii) specific localized shape
differences in regions of known estrogen sensitivity. The results support the notion that
ratings of women’s physical attractiveness are indeed based on indicators of developmental
stability and physiological status.
Personality and Individual …, Jan 1, 2006
Bilateral symmetry of physical traits is thought to reflect an individual's phenotypic quality, e... more Bilateral symmetry of physical traits is thought to reflect an individual's phenotypic quality, especially their ability to resist environmental perturbations during development. Therefore, facial symmetry may signal the ability of an individual to cope with the challenges of their environment. Studies concerning the relationship between symmetry and attractiveness lead to the conclusion that preferences for symmetric faces may have some adaptive value. We hypothesized that if symmetry is indeed indicative of an individual's overall quality, faces high in symmetry should receive higher ratings of attractiveness and health, but also be perceived as demonstrating certain positive personality attributes. College students' attributions of a set of 20 female faces varying in facial symmetry were recorded. As predicted, faces high in symmetry received significantly higher ratings of attractiveness, health, and certain personality attributes (i.e., sociable, intelligent, lively, self-confident, balanced). Faces low in symmetry were rated as being more anxious. These differences were not caused by an attractiveness stereotype. The present results lend further support to the notions that (i) facial symmetry is perceived as being attractive, presumably reflecting health certification 0191-8869/$ -see front matter Ó (B. Fink).
Bilateral symmetry of physical traits is thought to reflect an individual's phenotypic quality, e... more Bilateral symmetry of physical traits is thought to reflect an individual's phenotypic quality, especially their ability to resist environmental perturbations during development. Therefore, facial symmetry may signal the ability of an individual to cope with the challenges of their environment. Studies concerning the relationship between symmetry and attractiveness lead to the conclusion that preferences for symmetric faces may have some adaptive value. We hypothesized that if symmetry is indeed indicative of an individual's overall quality, faces high in symmetry should receive higher ratings of attractiveness and health, but also be perceived as demonstrating certain positive personality attributes. College students' attributions of a set of 20 female faces varying in facial symmetry were recorded. As predicted, faces high in symmetry received significantly higher ratings of attractiveness, health, and certain personality attributes (i.e., sociable, intelligent , lively, self-confident, balanced). Faces low in symmetry were rated as being more anxious. These differences were not caused by an attractiveness stereotype. The present results lend further support to the notions that (i) facial symmetry is perceived as being attractive, presumably reflecting health certification
Keywords: acoustic communication body size chest-to-hip ratio formant fundamental frequency jitte... more Keywords: acoustic communication body size chest-to-hip ratio formant fundamental frequency jitter sexual selection shimmer voice waist-to-hip ratio Studies of several mammalian species confirm that formant frequencies (vocal tract resonances) predict height and weight better than does fundamental frequency (F0, perceived as pitch) in same-sex adults due to differential anatomical constraints. However, our recent meta-analysis (Pisanski et al., 2014, Animal Behaviour, 95, 89e99) indicated that formants and F0 could explain no more than 10% and 2% of the variance in human height, respectively, controlling for sex and age. Here, we examined whether other voice parameters, many of which are affected by sex hormones, can indicate additional variance in human body size or shape, and whether these relationships differ between the sexes. Using a cross-cultural sample of 700 men and women, we examined relationships among 19 voice parameters (minimumemaximum F0, mean F0, F0 variability, formant-based vocal tract length estimates, shimmer, jitter, harmonics-to-noise ratio) and eight indices of body size or shape (height, weight, body mass index, hip, waist and chest circumferences, waist-to-hip ratio, chest-to-hip ratio). Our results confirm that formant measures explain the most variance in heights and weights of men and women, whereas shimmer, jitter and harmonics-to-noise ratio do not indicate height, weight or body mass index in either sex. In contrast, these perturbation and noise parameters, in addition to F0 range and variability, explained more variance in body shape than did formants or mean F0, particularly among men. Shimmer or jitter explained the most variance in men's hip circumferences (12%) and chest-to-hip ratios (6%), whereas harmonics-to-noise ratio and formants explained the most variance in women's waist-to-hip ratios (11%), and significantly more than in men's waist-to-hip ratios. Our study represents the most comprehensive analysis of vocal indicators of human body size to date and offers a foundation for future research examining the hormonal mechanisms of voice production in humans and perceptual playback experiments.
American Journal of …, Jan 1, 2011
Objectives: Evolutionary psychologists claim that women have adaptive preferences for specific ma... more Objectives: Evolutionary psychologists claim that women have adaptive preferences for specific male physical traits. Physical strength may be one of those traits, because recent research suggests that women rate faces of physically strong men as more masculine, dominant, and attractive. Yet, previous research has been limited in its ability to statistically map specific male facial shapes and features to corresponding physical measures (e.g., strength) and ratings (e.g., attractiveness).
Several disciplines share an interest in the evolutionary selection pressures that shaped human p... more Several disciplines share an interest in the evolutionary selection pressures that shaped human physical functioning and appearance, psyche, and behavior. The methodologies invoked from the disciplines studying these domains are often based on different rhetorics, and hence may conflict. Progress in one field is thereby hampered from effective transfer to others. Topics at the intersection of anthropometry and psychome-try, such as the impact of sexual selection on the hominin face, are a typical example. Since the underlying (evolutionary) theory explicitly places facial form in the middle of a causal chain as the mediating variable between biological causes and psychological effects, a particularly convenient conceptual and analytic scenario arises as follows. Modern morphometrics allows analysis of shape both " backwards " (by regressions on biology) and " forwards " (via predictions of psychology). The two computations are commensurate, hence the two kinds of effects can be compared and evaluated as directions in the same morphospace. We suggest translating the morphometric methodology of " Darwinian aesthetics " into this space, where psychological and other processes of interest can be coded commensurately. Such a translation permits researchers to relate the effects of biological processes on form to the perceptions of the same processes in one unified " psychomorphospace. "
Journal of neuroscience …, Jan 1, 2007
Facial expressions of emotions are important in nonverbal communication. Although numerous neural... more Facial expressions of emotions are important in nonverbal communication. Although numerous neural structures have been identified to be involved in emotional face processing, the amygdala is thought to be a core moderator. While previous studies have relied on facial images of humans, the present study is concerned with the effect of computer-generated (avatar) emotional faces on amygdala activation. Moreover, elicited activation patterns in response to viewing avatar faces are compared with the neuronal responses to human facial expressions of emotions. Twelve healthy subjects (five females) performed facial emotion recognition tasks with optimized 3T event-related fMRI. Robust amygdala activation was apparent in response to both human and avatar emotional faces, but the response was significantly stronger to human faces in face-sensitive structures, i.e. fusiform gyri. We suggest that avatars could be a useful tool in neuroimaging studies of facial expression processing because they elicit amygdala activation similarly to human faces, yet have the advantage of being highly manipulable and fully controllable. However, the finding of differences between human and avatar faces in face-sensitive regions indicates the presence of mechanisms by which human brains can differentiate between them. This mechanism merits further investigation.
This article was originally published in a journal published by Elsevier, and the attached copy i... more This article was originally published in a journal published by Elsevier, and the attached copy is provided by Elsevier for the author's benefit and for the benefit of the author's institution, for non-commercial research and educational use including without limitation use in instruction at your institution, sending it to specific colleagues that you know, and providing a copy to your institution's administrator. All other uses, reproduction and distribution, including without limitation commercial reprints, selling or licensing copies or access, or posting on open internet sites, your personal or institution's website or repository, are prohibited. For exceptions, permission may be sought for such use through Elsevier's permissions site at: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissionusematerial Abstract Facial expressions of emotions are important in nonverbal communication. Although numerous neural structures have been identified to be involved in emotional face processing, the amygdala is thought to be a core moderator. While previous studies have relied on facial images of humans, the present study is concerned with the effect of computer-generated (avatar) emotional faces on amygdala activation. Moreover, elicited activation patterns in response to viewing avatar faces are compared with the neuronal responses to human facial expressions of emotions. Twelve healthy subjects (five females) performed facial emotion recognition tasks with optimized 3T event-related fMRI. Robust amygdala activation was apparent in response to both human and avatar emotional faces, but the response was significantly stronger to human faces in face-sensitive structures, i.e. fusiform gyri. We suggest that avatars could be a useful tool in neuroimaging studies of facial expression processing because they elicit amygdala activation similarly to human faces, yet have the advantage of being highly manipulable and fully controllable. However, the finding of differences between human and avatar faces in face-sensitive regions indicates the presence of mechanisms by which human brains can differentiate between them. This mechanism merits further investigation.
This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the a... more This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights a b s t r a c t Women engage in intra-sexual competition to attract or to retain a mate. Given men's preferences for certain female physical characteristics, women may be attuned to potential rivals who display such traits. We examined how variation in facial femininity, breast size, and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) affects perceived competition and attractiveness judgments in a sample of German female undergraduates. Thirty-five women ranked five images of each stimulus type according to perceived competition and rated these images for attractiveness and femininity. Women with more feminine faces, larger breasts, and lower WHRs received higher attractiveness and femininity ratings and were ranked highest on perceived competition. The results indicate the occurrence of human female intra-sexual competition with respect to physical traits desired by potential mates.
Abstract 1. Evolutionary behavioral biology suggests that certain characteristics of the human fa... more Abstract 1. Evolutionary behavioral biology suggests that certain characteristics of the human face and body are important for mate preferences and are therefore subject to sexual selection. J. Weeden and J. Sabini (see record 2005-11504-001) identify a number of weaknesses in the association between traits' attractiveness and health. In contrast, the authors argue that (a) studies on preferences for physical characteristics that rely on 1 trait permit only limited interpretation,(b) limitations placed on J. Weeden and J.
Evolutionary behavioral biology suggests that certain characteristics of the human face and body ... more Evolutionary behavioral biology suggests that certain characteristics of the human face and body are important for mate preferences and are therefore subject to sexual selection. J. Weeden and J. Sabini (2005) identify a number of weaknesses in the association between traits' attractiveness and health. In contrast, the authors argue that (a) studies on preferences for physical characteristics that rely on 1 trait permit only limited interpretation, (b) limitations placed on J. Weeden and J. Sabini's review exclude important associations, (c) there are misconceptions in their treatment of some traits, and (d) their selected literature provides an inaccurate picture regarding effect size. The authors suggest that future research in this field should seek conceptual and methodological constancy in trait selection and in the evaluation of attractiveness-and health-related traits.
Female faces and bodies: N-dimensional feature space and attractiveness
Advances in visual cognition, Jan 1, 2002
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Physical Attractiveness by Bernhard Fink
ability of individuals to maintain stable development of their morphology under a given
environmental condition) and physiological status. Hence, evolutionary psychologists have
suggested that appearance may not only reveal so called ‘honest signals’ but even comprise a
single ornament of mate value. However, it is still a matter of debate which physical features
affect the ratings of female beauty, and whether these features are truly associated with aspects
of developmental and physiological status. Here we present morphometric data of
images of faces and bodies from 92 women together with ratings of attractiveness by 60
men. A total of 101 somatometric landmarks were digitized as two-dimensional coordinates
from three views: facial, front and back full-body view. These image sets were analyzed
separately by means of geometric morphometric methodology (GMM). Attractiveness ratings
of the face and body were significantly associated with both (i) the amount of fluctuating
asymmetry (as a measure of developmental stability), and (ii) specific localized shape
differences in regions of known estrogen sensitivity. The results support the notion that
ratings of women’s physical attractiveness are indeed based on indicators of developmental
stability and physiological status.