The Beauty Test, Human Face Options

[lojay]

I found this really interesting.
In my Sociology class we watched the mini series of The Human Face with John Cleese as the host and Elizabeth Hurley who assists. In one of the series it is mentioned that what makes people physically attractive is the symmetry in the face (This is a reason why athletes are attractive - their symmetry helps them run faster, and since their faces are symmetric, they are attractive as well). Anyway, it goes on about the Golden Theory and explains about how everything that is considered perfect is a ratio of 1 to 1.618. And this one guy made up a mask devised of all these ratios of 1 to 1.618. Anyway, long story short, it explains that the closer your face is to this "face mask" the more attractive you are. Tom Cruise's face fits the mask perfectly, same with Kate Moss. This mask is also used by plastic surgeons to determine what they need to do to make someone more "beautiful." So, instead of everyone asking if they are attractive, they can just Photoshop this mask onto their face and find out for themselves!

Here is the mask:



How close is your face?

[Gigi]

I've heard of this, and I've always been skeptical of it. However, I do believe that there are some faces that are more pleasing to the eye than others, simply by the theory of evolution. Traditionally good-looking male features include strong, wider jaw, heavier brows, while female features have plump lips, big eyes and a smaller, more delicate jaw with a narrower forehead. There must be a reason that these are the traditional gender features - they must be a sign of fertility that the opposite sex can be more attracted to, thus having a bigger chance of having healthy children, thus becoming more fit, etc...

Has anybody seen this thing on TV where they have a "database" of thousands of male and female faces, add them all together and "average" them out to create the average human face? They find that the people who most closely fit the "average" face are the most attractive. How ironic, considering how we've always thought of average-looking people as, well, not so great looking, but now you can take that as a compliment.

I think you can try it out here:
http://www.faceresearch.org/