AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
the familiarity of the face (mother vs. father vs. unknown
person), situational context in which is face is presented (sexual
vs. nonsexual context), and on the sex of the observer (man vs.
woman) as well as the sex of the facial composite (female vs.
male). Therefore, we designed research on a large sample (over
2.5 thousand) of men and women, which required various
evaluations of male and female facial composites using the right
of left part of the face in order to determine whether:
the subjects prefer the left or right half of the face as
represented by mirrored face symmetrical composites made
from either the left (left-face symmetrical composite) or
right half of the face (right-face symmetrical composite) in
attractiveness rating;
there is any difference in the preference for left- or right-
face symmetrical composites according to the sex of the
facial composite and the sex of the evaluator in
attractiveness rating;
the subjects prefer the left or right half of the face in the
evaluation task;
the subjects that rely on the left half of the face in the
evaluation task also prefer the left-face symmetrical
composite within the attractiveness rating (and vice versa:
subjects that rely on the right half of the face in evaluation
task also prefer the right-face symmetrical composite
within the attractiveness rating).
3 Procedure and Methods
The participants took part in the research voluntarily. After a
short exposition of the main ideas of the research and after
granting oral consent they continued by completing a battery of
questionnaires, tests and sets of questions and tasks. Only the
main area of research was disclosed to the participants,
otherwise they were blind to the aims of the specific tasks and
questions.
3.1 Preference for Left- or Right-Face Symmetrical
Composites in the Rating of Attractiveness
To determine the preference for either left- or right-face
symmetry in the attractiveness rating, four facial composites
were used – two female faces and two male faces (Fig. 1 and 2).
Fig. 1: Female face composites made as a mirror picture from
the left half of the photograph of the original female face (left
picture) and the right half of the original face (right picture)
(Jebreil, 2015).
Fig. 2: Male face composites made as a mirror picture from the
right half of the photograph of the original male face (left
picture) and the left half of the original face (right picture)
(Beaird, 2009).
Two female face composites were made with mirror images of
the left or right face sections of the original face. The left section
is the left half of the picture, as seen by the observer (the right
half of the face of person who has been photographed). The
original face was not included in the battery. Similarly, two male
composites were made and were presented in the opposite order
as the female facial composites. Whereas the first of the two
female pictures represented the left-left face composite and the
second the right-right face composite, in males the first picture
referred to the right-right mirror face composite and the second
to the left-left. The aim was to avoid the “same-choice” effect,
which could affect the results. The subjects were asked to choose
the most attractive female and male face composite.
3.2 Preference for Left or Right Half of the Face in the
Evaluation Task
Along with the task of choosing which, in their opinion, was the
more attractive of the two pictures, other facial composites were
added into the test battery (Fig. 3).
Fig. 3: Face composites blended from male and female halves of
the face (Perrett, 2010)
Subjects were asked to judge, which of the faces in Fig. 3 was
the more feminine. In reality, each face is half woman and half
man. The halves are subtly blended across the midline so that the
observer does not notice the join. The first (left) face composite
is blended from the left male and right female half of the face,
whereas the second (right) face composite is made from the left
female and right male half of the faces. The two facial
composites are therefore the same except that they are mirror
reflections (Perrett, 2010). This task reveals which half of the
face the subject preferred for when making decisions on human
faces.
3.3 Age and Sex of Evaluators
Data on age and sex were entered into the test battery by
participants. Age was stated in years. Participants had to choose
between the options: “male”/”female”.
4 Subjects
Subjects enrolled in the research on a voluntary basis. Out of
2,512 participants, 245 (9.75%) were excluded from further
evaluation due to incomplete or incorrectly completed
questionnaires. The final sample (N = 2,267) consisted of Slovak
females (N = 1,356; 59.8%) and males. The mean age of the
sample was 24.01 years with a minimum of 17 and a maximum
of 72.
5 Results
5.1 General Preference for Left- or Right-Face Symmetrical
Composites in the Rating of Attractiveness
Generally, our sample preferred the left-face symmetrical
composite over the right-face symmetrical composite when
rating attractiveness. When assessing the female face composite,
1,907 subjects (84.1 %) preferred the left-face symmetrical
composite over the right-face symmetrical composite (N = 360).
Similar results were gained for the male face assessment: 1,612
(71.1%) of subjects preferred the left-face symmetrical
composite over the right-face symmetrical composite (N = 655;
- 247 -