brain part for facial attraction

[gib65]

I've been doing some research into parts of the brain and what they do. The inferotemporal cortex, for example, has a lot to do with recognizing people's faces. But I'm wondering what part of the brain becomes active when we distinguish between male and female faces, and then see them as sexually attractive or unattractive. If there is a brain part for this, it must be somewhere near the inferotemporal cortex. Am I right?

[tomgwyther]

I'm not sure if there is a part of the brain that specifacaly decides what is atractive and what isn't.

I do know that some research into human facial recognition stumbled by accident onto a curious cunclusion.

 

A computer program was set up which would use two or more photos of faces and meld them together to produce a single image made up from attributes from each individual face.

the operator found that the more individual faces that were added; the better looking the final amalgumated picture was.

Attractivness seemed to be relative to how 'average' the face was.

Even two or three realy ugly people melded together in one photo, produced and attractive face.

A photo made up of 50 or so faces produced a real stunner!

 

 

Bueaty is still in the eye of the beholder though,

facial recognition my be processed by the inferotemporal cortex, but our 'judgement' on what we see could be somwhere completely different.

[gib65]

I knew it! I knew attractiveness was a measure of how "average" the face looked. It makes sense when you think about evolution theory. Why would we be wired to find deviant facial features attractive? We'd want to be attracted to people who looked most "human" (I know that sounds degrading to non-attractive people, but I don't mean it that way).

 

Every time I tried to explain this to people, however, they'd disagree saying "I don't think attractive people are average looking". But I never meant "average looking", I meant "the mean of all deviations of human facial features".

 

They'd usually give me the alternative theory that attractiveness is based on symmetry. But I've always thought this worked the other way around - that is, attractive people are going to have symmetrical faces, but not everyone with symmetrical faces would be attractive. Otherwise, I'd find baboons attractive.

 

Anyway, didn't mean to rant. Are you sure there's no spot in the brain for facial attraction? There's got to be. There's a spot for everything else we experience.

[Peels]

As beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, which means facial attraction must be related with personal experiences (memory), therefore, it should be saved somewhere in the cortex.

[LJBrown88]

aside from averageness and symmetry, you've missed out the third of the big three - hormonal markers i.e. sexually dimorphic traits e.g. the masculine jaw and the feminine lips.

 

I'm currently looking at some aspects of facial attractiveness in my dissertation research as it goes, see my spiel below :

 

"In your face" is a study forming part of the research of Laura J Brown, a 3rd year BSc Biological Anthropology student at the University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom.

 

The aim of the study is to examine male perception of female facial attractiveness.

 

The only requirements of this study are that you are male and heterosexual (if you are female, feel free to pass the link on to any suitable male friends though!).

 

***Complete the study and you could be 1 of 3 guys to win a crate of beer!***

 

The online questionnaire shouldn't take more than 30mins to complete. Please note that some of the questions are of a sexual nature, so only take part if you are happy to answer questions of this kind.

You may withdraw at any point should you no longer wish to participate, by simply exiting the website.

 

The questionnaire will involve you being shown a series of female facial photographs (there are 45 in total) and answering a set of corresponding questions. Please answer them honestly. Your responses will be kept confidential.

 

You can take part by clicking this link:

"In your face" - male perception of female facial attractiveness

 

Feel free to pass on the study site to any male friends:

 

http://inyourfacestudy.athost.net

 

 

If you have any questions, please email me at lb219@kent.ac.uk.

 

Thanks for your time,

 

Laura J Brown

 

Research supervisor:

Dr Sarah Johns - S.E.Johns@kent.ac.uk

Room 162

Department of Anthropology.

Marlowe Building. University of Kent.

Canterbury, Kent. CT2 7NR.

United Kingdom

[Royston]

I thought attraction was mainly based on familiarity i.e you're more likely to be attracted to somebody that looks similar to you (I'll look for a link).

 

I realize that sounds very strange, however I found this paper (which I can't access) that concludes that recollection isn't connected with familiarity, which is really odd, you'd thought the two would be intrinsically connected.

 

The paper is several years old, so somebody may know better.

 

Interesting stuff

 

Yoink...http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15109158

 

Another old paper unfortunately, I'll keep looking.

[iNow]

I thought attraction was mainly based on familiarity i.e you're more likely to be attracted to somebody that looks similar to you (I'll look for a link).

 

There's more to it than just that. There is also bilateral symmetry, averageness of the face, and other cues to health and fertility. What those are? I am not at liberty to say, as today is "enjoy some Irish Whiskey" day for me.

[lakmilis]

well, all I can say , is that im doing your test.. AND OMG... ok I know it sounds vain but could you not have found ONE.. just ONE nice looking gal????

 

LOL.. bloody brits (even if that is one of my 4 nationalities).

 

Anyway.. the site keeps reloading and not loading properly and i am over and over again rating these doooh pictures.

 

you want a beautiful face? (Nicole Scherzinger tjihi)..

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I knew it! I knew attractiveness was a measure of how "average" the face looked. It makes sense when you think about evolution theory. Why would we be wired to find deviant facial features attractive? We'd want to be attracted to people who looked most "human" (I know that sounds degrading to non-attractive people, but I don't mean it that way).

 

Every time I tried to explain this to people, however, they'd disagree saying "I don't think attractive people are average looking". But I never meant "average looking", I meant "the mean of all deviations of human facial features".

 

They'd usually give me the alternative theory that attractiveness is based on symmetry. But I've always thought this worked the other way around - that is, attractive people are going to have symmetrical faces, but not everyone with symmetrical faces would be attractive. Otherwise, I'd find baboons attractive.

 

Anyway, didn't mean to rant. Are you sure there's no spot in the brain for facial attraction? There's got to be. There's a spot for everything else we experience.

 

Not sure if that spot is in the brain ;p

 

Ok, anyway.. about attractiveness.. looking at various 'sub-groups' in our species (asian, caucasian, bla bla), think when they overlapped the faces, they could find many similar traits. Symmetry is of course important.. but beauty is certainly got a huge share in an 'objective' world and attractiveness more linked to our memories/experiences as someone pointed out and latent prevalence to these.

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Oh and snail... I think that must be a very outdated view... familiarity? Gosh... that doesn't hold for a second. You could perhaps go as far as to say , that due to cultural norms more people stick to familiarity than not.. but this would be influenced by the consensus in a society.. imagine for example, religions and cultures NOT going mental of cross cultural partnerships.. and imagine in our countries, we didn't have the issues between 'traditional native'and newer 'inhabitants'... if these social constraints were lifted... boy oh boy do I dare you familiarity would probably lose out to diversity

 

EDIT: btw.. we do tend to react (let's say) if we see a couple 'obviously' differing in beauty (please take this loosely.. im just not bothered writing it more accurately but hope the drift is taken).. We do often say.. ye they mix well or suit each other.. be it both two minging two lovely or two average bla bla couples... so in this sense familiarity or rather a coefficient of beauty is often seeked (as in symmetry) but thats about it. I have seen though in many cross cultural couplings, that due to cultural ideas and preconeptions , you can get quite a big divergence there in a couple. (whereas if one has a multiethnical cross couple but with similar mindset or culture.. than one sees again that harmony of level of beauty).

Edited March 30, 2009 by lakmilis
Consecutive posts merged.