Symmetry

Symmetry : 

Symmetry By: Kelsey Cirmotich Kevin Johns Lindsey Little Michael Mooney

What is symmetry? : 

What is symmetry? Symmetry, especially facial symmetry, is one of a number of aesthetic traits, including averageness and youthfulness, associated with health, physical attractiveness and beauty of a person or non-human animal. (Gillian Rhodes, Facial Attractiveness).

Facial Symmetry Experiment : 

Facial Symmetry Experiment In a study by, Karl Grammer, and Randy Thornhill, facial symmetry was studied based on how 52 female, and 44 male college students reacted to facial symmetry. These students were allowed to look at digital pictures showing symmetry of faces, or asymmetry, and only 4 of 11 hypothesized adjectives were used, which were, “attractive, dominant, sexy, and healthy.”

What Karl, and Randy had to say: : 

What Karl, and Randy had to say: “Our approach attempts to understand why people make judgments of the sexual attractiveness of human faces and what facial features are involved in such judgments and why. Said differently, we wish to know what kind of Darwinian selection pressure led to the psychological adaptation that processes information about facial aesthetic value and generates the different feelings and motivations associated with viewing faces of different aesthetic value.” There findings suggest that we choose our “mate” based on facial attractiveness, however there are different levels of attractiveness, such as: Some find small noses attractive compared to large, others find big eyes or small eyes attractive compared to their counterpart. (Grammer, & Thornhill, 1994)

Another symmetry and facial Attractiveness study : 

Another symmetry and facial Attractiveness study Viola Macchi Cassia, Dana Kuefner, Alissa Westerlund, and Charles A. Nelson studied brain activity while 100 photographs (all women) were shown to college students that were in undergraduate programs. 16 Female and 13 male participants were studied, their mean age was 20.3 years. The first 25 faces are normal, the second 25 are flipped 180 degrees, and the other 50 are distorted in some way.

The Findings of the Study : 

The Findings of the Study There 4 different faces were named ST, AT, SB, and AB. The ST and AT are opposites along with SB, and AB, being opposites. “…indicate that the general visual structural property of up–down asymmetry still plays a crucial role in modulating brain responses to faces.” (Cassia, Kuefner, Westerlund, & Nelson, 2006) This study shows that vertical symmetry is very important to how humans respond to attractiveness based on symmetry.

Asymmetry and Symmetry in the Beauty of Human Faces : 

Asymmetry and Symmetry in the Beauty of Human Faces In this study pictures were taken of male and female participants and were digitally altered to create perfect symmetry. A different set of participants (35 males and 47 females) were asked to look at these photos and asked about the attractiveness of each. They were asked to rate the picture based on attractiveness 1 to 5.

The results : 

The results The results were calculated based on (full-faces, left-hemisphere face, and right hemisphere face) Full face=3.21, Left face=3.08 Right=3.08

Results Continued : 

Results Continued A correlation coefficient chart was created and showed that there was a strong positive correlation between the hemisphere faces in comparison to full faces. This means if one side of the face is attractive then the other side must be attractive to create symmetry and what would be called “beauty.”

Dahlia W. Zaidel Marjan Hessamian : 

Dahlia W. Zaidel Marjan Hessamian “We need to consider that regardless of the origin and logic of symmetry in nature, the neuronal arrangements in the human brain support a wide range of positive and negative aesthetic responses independently of whether or not symmetry is perceptually or conceptually present, and independently of any relationship to mate selection strategies in the case of faces.” (Zaidel, & Hessamiam, 2010)

Conclusion : 

Conclusion Symmetry is yet to be a comprehensive and absolute way of defining beauty. The studies have shown the different ways of defining beauty and, and in most cases aesthetics rule supreme in defining whether or not a face is beautiful or not. Since different people see different things as beautiful there is no clear way of knowing what beauty is as a concrete definition, although we find through the studies aesthetic symmetry is almost inclusive evidence of what humans define as beauty.

Resources : 

Resources Grammer, K, & Thornhill, R. (1994). Human (homo sapiens} facial attractiveness and sexual selection: the role of symmetry and averageness. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 108(3) Cassia, V, Kuefner, D, Westerlund, A, & Nelson, C. (2006). Modulation of face-sensitive event-related potentials by canonical and distorted human faces: the role of vertical symmetry and up–down featural arrangement. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience,18(8) Zaidel, D, & Hessamiam, M. (2010). Asymmetry and symmetry in the beauty of human faces. Open Access: Symmetry, 2(3)