title: Facial aesthetics: babies prefer attractiveness to symmetry.
abstract: The visual preferences of human infants for faces that varied in their attractiveness and in their symmetry about the midline were explored. The aim was to establish whether infants' visual preference for attractive faces may be mediated by the vertical symmetry of the face. Chimeric faces, made from photographs of attractive and unattractive female faces, were produced by computer graphics. Babies looked longer at normal and at chimeric attractive faces than at normal and at chimeric unattractive faces. There were no developmental differences between the younger and older infants: all preferred to look at the attractive faces. Infants as young as 4 months showed similarity with adults in the 'aesthetic perception' of attractiveness and this preference was not based on the vertical symmetry of the face.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales 2351, Australia.
authors.forename: Curtis A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Samuels
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QU, UK.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Butterworth
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
authors.forename: Tony
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QU, UK.
authors.forename: Lida
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Graupner
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QU, UK.
authors.forename: Graham
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hole
mesh_terms: D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D004954:Esthetics / Q000523:psychology*; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D012938:Social Perception