The attractiveness of nonface averages: implications for an evolutionary explanation of the attractiveness of average faces.
Researchers have argued that humans' attraction to average faces reflects an evolved psychological mechanism to identify high-quality mates. If this direct-selection account is correct, there is no reason to expect a similar averageness bias for stimuli that are irrelevant to reproductive fitness. The current study, however, found a strong relationship between averageness and attractiveness for dogs, wristwatches, and birds. The most parsimonious explanation is that humans have a general attraction to prototypical exemplars, and that their attraction to average faces is a reflection of this more general attraction. We tested whether a general preference for familiar stimuli can account for the attractiveness of averageness. This account was not supported for dogs or birds, but could not be ruled out for watches.
Halberstadt
J
J
Department of Psychology, University of Otago, P.O. Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand. jhalbers@psy.otago.ac.nz
Rhodes
G
G
D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention; D001504:Beauty; D005075:Biological Evolution; D001717:Birds; D002755:Choice Behavior; D004285:Dogs; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual