Relação entre simetria facial e expertise artística na preferência estética por faces

Abstract

Visual symmetry is almost universally present in both natural and artificial environments. Its importance is on both perceptual and cognitive levels. Symmetry processing, especially bilateral symmetry, is fast, efficient, and noise resistant. Humans, like other species, prefer symmetrical visual stimuli, a preference that is influenced by factors such as age, sex, and artistic training. In particular, artistic training in visual arts seems to decrease the rejection of asymmetry in abstract stimuli. But it is not known whether the same trend would be observed concerning concrete stimuli, such as human faces. In this work, the role of expertise in visual arts, music, and dance, in the perceived beauty and attractiveness of human faces with different asymmetries was investigated. With this objective, the beauty and attractiveness of 100 photographs of faces (50 male and 50 female) with different degrees of asymmetry were evaluated by 116 participants with different levels of art expertise. The art expertise in the three artistic modalities mentioned was assessed through an Arts Expertise Questionnaire. Facial asymmetry was obtained from geometric morphometric techniques in the MorphoJ software. Multilevel modeling strategies (ANOVA for repeated measures, correlation for repeated measures and linear mixed models) were used for statistical analysis. Expertise in visual arts and dance was associated with the extent to which facial asymmetry influenced the beauty ratings assigned to the faces. The greater the art expertise in visual arts and dance, the more indifferent to facial asymmetry the participant was to evaluate beauty. The same effect was not found for music and neither for attractiveness ratings. These findings are important to help understand how face aesthetic evaluation is modified by artistic training and the difference between beauty and attractiveness evaluations.