Cross-cultural perception of female facial appearance: A multi-ethnic and multi-centre study

Rainer Voegeli, Rotraut Schoop, Elodie Prestat-Marquis, Anthony V Rawlings, Todd K Shackelford, Bernhard Fink, Rainer Voegeli, Rotraut Schoop, Elodie Prestat-Marquis, Anthony V Rawlings, Todd K Shackelford, Bernhard Fink

Abstract

Humans extract and use information from the face in assessments of physical appearance. Previous research indicates high agreement about facial attractiveness within and between cultures. However, the use of a narrow age range for facial stimuli, limitations due to unidirectional cross-cultural comparisons, and technical challenges have prevented definitive conclusions about the universality of face perception. In the present study, we imaged the faces of women aged 20 to 69 years in five locations (China, France, India, Japan, and South Africa) and secured age, attractiveness, and health assessments on continuous scales (0-100) from female and male raters (20-66 years) within and across ethnicity. In total, 180 images (36 of each ethnicity) were assessed by 600 raters (120 of each ethnicity), recruited in study centres in the five locations. Linear mixed model analysis revealed main and interaction effects of assessor ethnicity, assessor gender, and photographed participant ("face") ethnicity on age, attractiveness, and health assessments. Thus, differences in judgments of female facial appearance depend on the ethnicity of the photographed person, the ethnicity of the assessor, and whether the assessor is female or male. Facial age assessments correlated negatively with attractiveness and health assessments. Collectively, these findings provide evidence of cross-cultural variation in assessments of age, and even more of attractiveness, and health, indicating plasticity in perception of female facial appearance across cultures, although the decline in attractiveness and health assessments with age is universally found.

Conflict of interest statement

RV and RS are employees of DSM, BF and AVR are consultants to DSM and EP is an employee of Newtone. TKS states no conflict of interest. This does not alter our adherence to PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Figures

Fig 1. Samples images of female participants…
Fig 1. Samples images of female participants for presentation in the rating study.
Chinese a), French b), Indian c), Japanese d), and S. African e).
Fig 2. Experimental setup for the face…
Fig 2. Experimental setup for the face rating.
Naïve female and male assessors viewed facial images and provided spontaneous judgments of facial age, attractiveness, and health.
Fig 3. Assessments of facial images, by…
Fig 3. Assessments of facial images, by participant (“face”) ethnicity, assessor ethnicity and gender for age.
Fig 4. Assessments of facial images, by…
Fig 4. Assessments of facial images, by participant (“face”) ethnicity, assessor ethnicity and gender for attractiveness.
Fig 5. Assessments of facial images, by…
Fig 5. Assessments of facial images, by participant (“face”) ethnicity, assessor ethnicity and gender for health.

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