Panel perception of facial appearance of cleft patients generated by use of a morphing technique.
OBJECTIVE
Perception of the facial appearance of cleft patients has, until now, been evaluated on the basis of photographs of the patients. Research based on photographs generated by use of a morphing technique has not yet been reported. The purpose of this study was to investigate female and male raters' panel perception with regard to the following: (1) patient age, (2) attractiveness, (3) gender appearance, and (4) likeability of faces of cleft patients generated by the use of a morphing technique.


METHODS
The study was conducted at the Department of Oral, Craniomaxillofacial and Facial Plastic Surgery, University Hospital of Leipzig, Germany.


METHODS
We used photographs of 32 adult German nonsyndromic cleft patients, mean age 18.9 ± 1.3 years, and surveyed 93 students, mean age 25.3 ± 3.2 years, by use of a standardized questionnaire.


RESULTS
All respondents rated the mean age of cleft patients equally in unmorphed and morphed pictures. For all respondents, attractiveness of morphed patient pictures was rated significantly higher than for unmorphed pictures (mean 4.8 ± 1.0 vs. 6.4 ± 2.4; p < 0.001), although significance was reached only if morphed pictures of eight patients were rated. Female respondents rated attractiveness significantly higher than did males, especially for pictures of female patients.


CONCLUSIONS
Facial morphing of patient pictures is a suitable method for creation of standard cleft faces. Despite the modification of the pictures, the faces generated remain human and assessable by panel members. Perception of faces of cleft patients' depended on raters' gender.
Department of Oral, Craniomaxillofacial and Facial Plastic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University Hospital of Leipzig, Liebigstr. 12 04103, Leipzig, Germany, vedat.yildirim@medizin.uni-leipzig.de.
Vedat
V
Yildirim
Alexander
A
Hemprich
Martin
M
Gründl
Niels Christian
NC
Pausch
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000465:Algorithms; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002971:Cleft Lip / Q000523:psychology*; D002972:Cleft Palate / Q000523:psychology*; D003196:Computer Graphics; D004954:Esthetics; D005145:Face / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010781:Photography / Q000379:methods; D012929:Psychological Distance; D012737:Sex Factors; D012938:Social Perception; D012984:Software; D055815:Young Adult