Women who have average features are considered to be very beautiful by their peer group according to a recent study.
Researchers belonging to University of California, San Diego as well as the Toronto University requested college students to take view of the digital photos of women faces that were identical in nature for slight alterations in some of the facial proportion, which included the placement of one’s eyes as well as the nose and the eyes.
Faces of females that followed certain proportions were considered to be attractive by their peers, especially the vertical distance one found between the eyes and the mouth and that is about 36% of facial length. Also the peers appreciated the horizontal distance between one’s eyes that happens to be 46% of facial width. Researchers call this a “golden ratio”.
Though it is not known why features that follow proportions are considered to be attractive, researchers are of the view that people have mental picture of certain looks and anything that fits into that purview of looks is considered to be appealing.
Says study co-author Kang Lee, professor, University of Toronto and the director of the Institute of Child Study, Ontario Institute for Studies for Education. ” Our study conclusively proves that the structure of the faces, the relation between our face contour and the eyes, nose and mouth also contribute to our perception of facial attractiveness. Our finding also explains why sometimes an attractive person looks unattractive or vice versa after haircut, because hairdos change the ratios.”
As only white females faces were included, the authors were of the view that there could be different set of ideal proportions for other kinds of racial groups, male faces or children faces.
The study was published online as an advance publication of the to-be-released print issue of Vision Research.
