Beauty is in the ease of the beholding: a neurophysiological test of the averageness theory of facial attractiveness.

ABSTRACT: Hundreds of studies have shown that people prefer attractive over unattractive faces. But what is an attractive face, and why is it preferred? Averageness theory claims that faces are perceived as being attractive when their facial configuration approximates the mathematical average facial configuration of the population. Conversely, faces that deviate from this average configuration are perceived as being unattractive. The theory predicts that both attractive and mathematically averaged faces should be processed more fluently than unattractive faces, whereas the averaged faces should be processed marginally more fluently than the attractive faces. We compared neurocognitive and behavioral responses to attractive, unattractive, and averaged human faces to test these predictions. We recorde

SUBMITTER: Trujillo LT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4053512 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature