Adaptation reinforces preferences for correlates of attractive facial cues

Benedict C. Jones, Lisa M. Debruine, Anthony C. Little

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

22 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

It is generally thought that experience with faces recalibrates preferences to match the population average for recently encountered exemplars. Here, however, we demonstrate that viewing faces biases recalibration of preferences towards characteristics that are common to the more attractive faces that were encountered, rather than characteristics of the unbiased population average. Furthermore, this bias in recalibration of preferences was abolished when participants' attention was directed away from the attractive faces, suggesting it is a consequence of the tendency to look longer and more often at attractive faces than at relatively unattractive faces. These findings suggest a perceptual mechanism that may reinforce directional selection for nonaverage attractive facial characteristics and their correlates, rather than driving stabilizing selection for average traits.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)849-858
Number of pages10
JournalVisual Cognition
Volume16
Issue number7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2008

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Adaptation reinforces preferences for correlates of attractive facial cues'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this