Influence of lower facial height changes on frontal facial attractiveness and perception of treatment need by lay people.
OBJECTIVE
To test the hypothesis that lower facial height has no influence on frontal facial attractiveness and treatment need perception of lay people.


METHODS
Frontal facial silhouettes of a man and a woman with normal lower facial height values (male: 81.5 mm; female: 70.5 mm) were modified by increasing and decreasing their lower facial heights in steps of 1 mm to obtain frontal images with different lower facial height alterations ranging from +6 mm to -6 mm for each sex. A panel of 100 lay people scored each silhouette's attractiveness on a 100-mm visual analogue scale (VAS) and also indicated whether they would seek treatment if the image represented their own. The Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to compare the VAS scores.


RESULTS
Unaltered +/-1-mm and +/-2-mm silhouettes got the highest VAS scores. Scores were significantly lower (P < or = .001) as the divergence from the normal value exceeded 2 mm. Beyond +3 mm and -4 mm in females and +4 mm and -3 mm in males the difference between the scores became statistically insignificant. At +/-4 mm, more than 75% of the raters elected to have treatment.


CONCLUSIONS
The hypothesis was rejected.
Varlik
Selin Kale
SK
Department of Orthodontics, Gazi University Faculty of Dentistry, Ankara, Turkey. kaleselin@yahoo.com
Demirbaş
Evren
E
Orhan
Metin
M
D000328:Adult; D004955:Esthetics, Dental; D005145:Face / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020380:Needs Assessment; D015588:Observer Variation; D009971:Orthodontics, Corrective / Q000523:psychology*; D023861:Photography, Dental; D012016:Reference Values; D012737:Sex Factors; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D014716:Vertical Dimension