History and Current Concepts in the Analysis of Facial Attractiveness

Abstract

A surgeon planning facial cosmetic, plastic, or reconstructive surgery can potentially gain both profound insight and better quality surgical results by appreciating these findings.

Comparison of soft-tissue orbital morphometry in attractive and normal Italian subjects

“…In women, the eye fissure length and the height of the orbit were larger, with a resulting wider soft tissue orbital area; this finding is in good accord with the babyness hypothesis of facial attractiveness. 1 In general, attractive women have faces with juvenile characteristics, 1 and this is true also for the periorbital area. Aging involves a series of modifications in the periorbital soft tissues, with a resulting perception of a smaller palpebral aperture in older subjects.…”

“…Most of the preceding studies were made in women, and the assessment of male attractiveness was almost always limited to those parts of the face positively influenced by high testosterone levels (a signal of sexual dimorphism). 1,21 In our laboratory, we are currently attempting to measure the facial characteristics of subjects considered attractive by the general public. 15,22,23 These subjects' three-dimensional facial soft-tissue dimensions were compared with those collected in healthy subjects of the same gender, age, and ethnicity, and the presence of measurable specific characteristics was assessed.…”

“…3,5,6,8,[12][13][14] According to the current theories of evolutionary psychology, the esthetic assessment of adult faces depends on various combinations of averageness, symmetry, neoteny (babyness) and youthfulness, and sexual dimorphism. [1][2][3][4]15 Studies on facial attractiveness focused both on the psychological bases of esthetic perception 1,3,16 and on actual measurements computed for faces ( faces) considered more or less attractive. 2,4,5,12,[17][18][19][20] Unfortunately, previous investigations were mostly performed on two-dimensional images (only Farkas 19 used three-dimensional measurements), did not report global measures such as facial areas, and scantly assessed men.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] For instance, a recent search in the PubMed database using the key word ''aesthetics'' produced 21,706 entries in the period 1950-2013; using ''aesthetics and face,'' a total of 3951 entries was obtained; and the combination ''aesthetics and (eye or orbital)'' produced 987 entries. 9 Sixty percent of these papers were published in the current century (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013), thus showing the increasing interest in facial esthetics.…”

Faces prototípicas provenientes de amostras populacionais de uma região brasileira

“…Assim, quanto mais a aparência de uma face se aproxima da face prototípica, maior seu nível de atratividade (Langlois & Roggman, 1990;Rhodes et al,1999;Vokey & Read, 1992). Além das investigações teóricas sobre atratividade, a face prototípica, como representa a forma facial de determinado grupo, poderia ser usada como parâmetro no planejamento de cirurgias plásticas de correção e reconstituição facial, cujas referências antropo-encefalométricas atuais não se baseiam em estudos de populações brasileiras (Bashour, 2006).…”