New Aspects of Human Physical Appearance
Evolution, Anthropology
Final Report Abstract
I proposed to identify topics and salient features of human physical appearance, which had received comparably little attention in research on human social perception. These were i) the cross-cultural perception of human body movement, ii) the perception of male facial skin, and iii) the perception of female hair color and style. First, this project documents that male and female members of WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies (Chile, Germany, and Russia) can accurately judge male physical strength from gait but differ in attractiveness judgments of strong and weak male walkers. Women tended to provide higher attractiveness judgments to strong walkers, and men tended to provide higher attractiveness judgments to weak walkers. These effects were independent of gait speed manipulations and generalized across samples. However, there was no such evidence for these effects in members of a non- WEIRD sample (the Maasai of Tanzania), thus arguing against a universal perception of physical strength information from gait cues. Second, studies investigating the effects of visible skin condition on the perception of female faces reported a differential weighting for skin topography and color evenness, where topography was a stronger visual cue for perception of age, and skin color evenness was a stronger visual cue for perception of health. The present project investigated these effects in men. The removal of skin surface topography resulted in younger age assessments compared with that seen with the removal of skin coloration cues, whereas the opposite pattern was found for health judgments. No difference was detected for assessments of attractiveness. Our data on the perception of male skin replicates the results of similar investigations in women, showing that skin surface topography is a stronger cue for perception of age, whereas skin color evenness is a stronger cue for the perception of health. These perceptual effects were greatest when features were manipulated in more than one area. Third, it has been unclear how hair contributes to the assessment of physical appearance. I suggested that the creation of virtual (animated) human hair might afford a breakthrough in addressing the effects of hair color and style. I hypothesized that people are visually sensitive to thickness-/density- and style-related variation in optical properties of hair, and that this has consequences for hair assessments. The results show that even subtle changes in these features have an impact on hair perception. Straight hair was judged as younger, healthier and more attractive than wavy hair, and darker shades (medium copper and brown) were perceived more positively than blonde hair. We further stylized the effect of skin tanning in women and investigated interaction effects with hair color on physical appearance. We found that color contrast (of hair and skin) plays a role in the perception of health and attractiveness in women, especially in those with little to no skin tan and those with pronounced skin tan. Collectively, the project findings have contributed significantly to the scientific study of human physical appearance. They have opened avenues for future topic-related investigations and will likely inspire the industry in setting their goals in addressing male and female grooming behavior.
Publications
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Female perceptions of male body movement. In: V. Weekes-Shackelford & T.K. Shackelford (Eds.), Evolutionary perspectives on human sexual psychology and behavior. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2014, pp. 299-324.
Fink, B., Weege, B., Neave, N., Ried, B., do Lago, O.C.
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Men’s perception of women’s dance movements depends on mating context, but not men’s sociosexual orientation. Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 86. 2015, pp. 172-175.
Röder, S., Weege, B., Carbon, C., Shackelford, T.K., & Fink, B.
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Physical strength and gender identification from dance movements.
Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 76. 2015, pp. 13-17.
Hufschmidt, C., Weege, B., Röder, S., Pisanski, K., Neave, N., & Fink, B.
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Age, health and attractiveness perception of virtual (rendered) human hair.
Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 7. 2016, 1893.
Fink, B., Hufschmidt, C., Hirn, T., Will, S., McKelvey, G., & Lankhof, J.
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Cross-cultural investigation of male gait perception in relation to physical strength and speed. Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 8. 2017, 1427.
Fink, B., Wübker, M., Ostner, J., Butovskaya, M.L., Mezentseva, A., Muñoz-Reyes, J.A., Sela, Y., & Shackelford, T.K.
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Hair color and skin color together influence perceptions of age, health, and attractiveness in lightly pigmented, young women. International Journal of Cosmetic Science, Vol. 40. 2018, Issue 3, pp. 303-312.
Fink, B., Liebner, K., Müller, A.-K., Hirn, T., McKelvey, G., Lankhof, J.
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The effect of skin surface topography and skin colouration cues on perception of male facial age, health and attractiveness. International Journal of Cosmetic Science, Vol. 40.2018, Issue 2, pp. 193-198.
Fink, B., Matts, P.J., Brauckmann, C., Gundlach, S.
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Assessment of physical strength from gait: Data from the Maasai of Tanzania. Biology Letters, Vol. 15. 2019, Issue 3, 20180803.
Fink, B., Butovskaya, M.L., Shackelford, T.K.
