Assessing the roles of symmetry, prototypicality, and sexual dimorphism of face shape in health perceptions

Health perceptions are thought to play an important role in human mate preferences. Although many studies have investigated potential relationships between health ratings of faces and facial symmetry, prototypicality, and sexual dimorphism, findings have been mixed across studies. Consequently, we tested for potential relationships between health ratings of faces and objective measures of the symmetry, prototypicality, and sexual dimorphism of those faces’ shapes. When these shape characteristics were entered individually in separate regression models, we observed significant positive relationships between health ratings and both shape symmetry and prototypicality. By contrast, sexual dimorphism and health ratings were not significantly correlated. In regression models in which symmetry, prototypicality, and sexual dimorphism were entered simultaneously as predictors, prototypicality, but not symmetry, was significantly correlated with health ratings and sexual dimorphism predicted health ratings of female, but not male, faces. Collectively, these results suggest that the relationship between prototypicality and health ratings is likely to be particularly robust and highlight the importance of considering multiple aspects of face shape when investigating potential associations between face shape and health perceptions.

This research was supported by ESRC grant ES/X000249/1 awarded to BCJ and a University of Strathclyde Global Research Award to KL. For the purpose of Open Access, the authors have applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) to any Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version arising from this submission.

健康认知被认为在人类配偶选择偏好中扮演着重要角色。尽管众多研究已探讨面部健康评分与面部对称性、典型性和性二态性之间的潜在关系，但研究结果在各个研究中存在差异。因此，本研究旨在检验面部健康评分与面部形状的对称性、典型性和性二态性的客观测量之间的潜在关系。当这些形状特征分别进入单独的回归模型时，我们发现健康评分与形状对称性和典型性之间存在显著的积极关系。相比之下，性二态性与健康评分之间并无显著相关性。在将对称性、典型性和性二态性同时作为预测因子纳入的回归模型中，典型性与健康评分存在显著相关性，而对称性则没有，性二态性预测了女性而非男性的健康评分。总体而言，这些结果表明典型性与健康评分之间的关系可能特别稳健，并强调了在探讨面部形状与健康认知之间潜在关联时考虑面部形状多个方面的必要性。

本研究得到经济与社会研究委员会（ESRC）资助项目ES/X000249/1（由BCJ申请）和斯特拉斯克莱德大学全球研究奖（由KL申请）的支持。为促进开放获取，作者已对任何由此提交产生的作者接受手稿（AAM）版本申请了创意共享署名（CC BY）许可。