Aesthetic Delusions: An Investigation into the Role of Rapid Visual Adaptation in Aesthetic Practice

Abstract

Background

To date, the process of adaptation in the setting of aesthetic medicine has not been investigated. The combination of complex advanced feedback in the current intense social media milieu, in conjunction with easily accessible and effective aesthetic treatments, has produced pockets of overtreated patients and over-zealous practitioners. We examine whether aesthetic assessments of attractiveness and what appears natural can be distorted by the cognitive process of adaptation.

Methods

Forty-eight female participants were exposed to photographs of female faces in whom lip fullness had been strongly under- or over-exaggerated, while remaining within the bounds of natural appearing lips. Before and after evaluation of the exaggerated images, participants were asked to rate an alternative set of faces in terms of attractiveness (reflecting direct assessment of effective beauty impression) and naturalness (reflecting indirect assessment of beauty norms). The evaluation set consisted of six base faces that had been digitally altered to create a systematically varying 11 step set of lip sizes from extremely thin, to the original version, to very full.

Results

Second-order polynomial fits indicated clear shifts of the subjects’ facial aesthetic assessments towards the specific lip fullness of the adaptors. In contrast, such adaptions were not found for ratings of face naturalness. In contrast to research demonstrating mathematical foundations and unchanging rules governing perceptions of beauty, we show that simple viewing of exaggerated feature morphologies can rapidly result in recalibration of a person’s assessment of attractiveness.

Conclusion

This paper provides evidence that facial attractiveness is fluid, and that there are psychological mechanisms that cause an aesthetic bias. Over-exposure to exaggerated features can lead to significant changes to a person’s ideas of attractiveness.

Keywords:

• aesthetic assessments
• attractiveness
• standards
• norm
• flexibility
• adaptation
• facial attractiveness

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Merz Aesthetics for funding this collaborative cross-specialty research especially noting the assistance of Dr. T. Phillips, and her medical affairs team. The payment was only for conducting the study. CCC would like to thank Nathalie Schoemann, Yassin El Amri and Johannes Langer for their help in conducting this study and Vera M. Hesslinger for very fruitful discussion on the origin of the revealed adaptation effects. Photoshopped Liquify images are copyright of CCC.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Additional information

Funding

The authors wish to thank Merz Aesthetics for funding this collaborative cross-specialty research. The payment was only for conducting the study.