Halberstadt + Rhodes EVOLUTIONARY exp of attractiveness of avg faces

Question 1

What is the evolutionary explanation for the high rate of attractiveness for the typical face?

Answer 1

• The typical face = showing that their genes are all good
• Also means that any abnormalities that can be seen like facial deformities means they are not the typical
• Over time, the number of people with atypical face decreases

Question 2

why is an alternative explanation needed from the evolutionary explanation for why average faces are attractive?

Answer 2

Johnstone, 1994

preferences can evolve in the absence of any link between the preferred trait and mate quality

Question 3

What is an alternative explanation for why average faces are attractive?

Answer 3

a by-product of some more general features of a recognition system for familiar stimuli
- mere exposure effect

Question 4

What Langlois et al 1994 find supporting the role of familiarity?

Answer 4

• Face composites were judged as more familiar than individual faces
  Acknowledged that familiarity may explain the attractiveness of average faces

Question 5

Can the familiarity and evolutionary explanation work together?

Answer 5

YES
where people are looking at the average face not to its reproductive benefits
- but a by-product of a more general preference for familiar

Question 6

What are 2 ways an attraction to avg face could have an evolutionary basis?

Answer 6

1. Direct-selection: Preference for averageness carries information about mate quality
2. Indirect-selection: Preference could be a by-product of some more general preferences for averageness

Question 7

What is the aim of the paper?

Answer 7

• test the plausibility of the direct-selection account by exploring the generality of people’s attraction to average example
  
  • Testing direct + indirect selection explanation
  • If direct true then the focus of attraction would only apply to humans and not to other objects, otherwise = indirect-selection

Question 8

What were the 3 different stimuli categories used for this study?

Answer 8

1. Dogs = familiar biological stimulus category
2. Watches = familiar artificial stimulus category
3. Birds = to address the possibility that attractiveness produces averageness
   - can’t exert control over the frequency distribution of category members
   - Prevents then from being biased towards attractive exemplars

Question 9

What was the method of the study?

Answer 9

• Ask to rate the attractiveness of the 3 stimulus

- Asked to rate familiarity to evaluate possibility that average exemplars are attractive because they seem familiar

Question 10

What were the findings of the study?

Answer 10

1. Dogs: averageness and familiarity both strongly predicted their attractiveness
   - when familiarity not included, attractiveness + avg correlation still significant
   - when avg not included, attractiveness + familiarity not significant
2. Watches: averageness + familiarity both strongly predicted attractiveness
   - familiarity independently predicted attractiveness
3. averageness strongly positively correlated with attractiveness
   - averageness predicted attractiveness over and above familiarity

Question 11

Why do the findings not support the direct-selection evolutionary explanation of avg being attractive?

Answer 11

• different stimulus all revealed a positive relationship between averageness + attractiveness
  = humans are attracted to facial averageness as a consequence of a more general perceptual/ cognitive processing bias NOT JUST MATING

Question 12

What is an explanation for their findings where averageness independently predicted attractiveness over familiairty?

Answer 12

Mere exposure effect

1. Gordon + Holyoak 1993
   - attachment of positive affect to previously seen stimuli, did in face generalise to unseen prototype from which the seen stimuli were generated
   - but not applicable for watches

Question 13

What is an alternative explanation for the findings of watches?

Answer 13

• due to biological status of dogs + birds?
• Ease with which prototypes can be abstracted from these categories?
  ▪ Different mechanisms underlying the attractiveness effects in each stimulus
  ▪ EG: Average human faces preferred for their info value etc

Question 14

What is Mandler’s Theory of emotion on new stimulus?

Answer 14

atypical exemplars of a category should be preferred to the category prototype

1. Evaluation = match new stimulus + existing stimulus + cognitive activity required to resolve any incongruity
2. Incongruity = + or - depending on success in integration with existing schema
   - + = easy integration
   - - = cannot fit to existing prototype

Question 15

What did Gordon + Holyoak 1983 say about what happens when exposed to unfamiliar stilmuli?

Answer 15

• increased liking both for the seen stimuli + the unseen prototypes from which they were generated
  (Exposure to unfamiliar colour matrices increases liking for them)

Question 16

What was Langlois’s explanation for the preference for averageness?

Answer 16

• An innate tendency to form prototypes