I’ve talked a great deal about this, especially on another forum.
Yes we know there’s no univerally accepted signature that will be appealing to all. However, there are those who are found attractive on a more frequent basis than others. I do believe there are faces, signatures, bodies etc that will generally be perceived as sexy by women in the baby making periods of their lives.
I know I’ve worn synthetics that have affected an unusually high number of women compared to other applications. The synthetic combined with my natural mones combine to hit that sweet spot for the ratios.
I’ve suggested that faces that perceived as attractive by women be broken down into different categories. Reason being is that tests which morph an image of a feminine face of a guy and a macho face of a guy reveal that there’s one point in which a perfect balance is achieved. Interestingly enough, this differs for the U.S. (more masculine) and Britain (more feminine) as to what’s perceived as attractive. Is it the birth control in the water in london? I’m half kidding, half serious about that.
To break down each face, categories related to either hormones, or personality qualities, or emotions can be assigned. Then we can get a better idea of general ratios needed for the pheromones associated with these attributes. The fact that scientists morphed between a masculine and feminine face tells me numbers can be retrieved. It’s all mathematical.
"*Penton-Voak, Little, Jones, Burt, Tiddleman, and Perrett (2003) performed a study to discover if female condition (other-rated facial attractiveness, or how their own faces were rated by others in terms of attractiveness and WHR) had any effect on their preference for sexual dimorphism in male faces. They presented women with computer graphically altered images of the male faces in their masculinized form and in their feminized form. There were 6 different faces in all, with 5 images of each face. The images ranged from 50% masculinized to 30% masculinized (airbrushed to look less masculine) to average to 30% feminized (airbrushed to look more feminine than masculine) to 50% feminized on a continuum. The 50% feminized images were the same male face made to look decidedly feminine. The results show that women with unattractive (high) WHR and low other-rated facial attractiveness preferred the more feminine male faces when choosing faces for a long-term relationship than for a short-term relationship, while females who were rated as more attractive did not have a different preference for long-term and short-term relationships.
The researchers were trying to discover whether women would prefer more masculine mates or more feminine mates. The theory is/was that women might prefer more masculine mates because facial masculinity has been proposed as a sign of good genes. However, more feminine male faces are seen as possessing prosocial, desirable personality traits. It is apparent from the results of the study that women in general prefer more feminine faces for long-term relationships, even if only slightly more feminine than average.
http://annierichards.tripod.com/images/fert.jpg
http://annierichards.tripod.com/beauty.htm
***What’s in a face?*By Stanniforth Webb
Research at St Andrews University in Scotland has revealed that women find men with feminine features more attractive than men with masculine features. Anthropologists say the sexes have been getting more alike for the last hundred thousand years. If this is the product of growing “girl power”, the similarities are likely to go on getting greater.
*
Ian Penton-Voak of the University is a member of the research team involved. He says: “Men and women both prefer a female face to look more feminine than average. We looked for and identified the differences and either increased or decreased those differences (in images we showed people) and we found that men preferred women’s features to look more feminine than average. Feminine features are a small chin, wide lips, a large distance between the top of the eye and the eyebrows, and thin arched eyebrows.”
- These features are influenced by the sex hormone oestrogen during growth and during puberty. A good supply of oestrogen is linked to health and good reproductive capacity in adult women. So the theory is that men have evolved to find attractive the faces that mean good health and plenty of children.
But how do women like men to look? Says Dr Penton-Voak, “This was a complete surprise to us. We found that women — and men — preferred slightly feminised faces.”*
Why? Ian Penton-Voak explains: “We think it may have something to do with the perceived personality that people attribute to these faces — like warmth, honesty and goodness as a parent.” — Courtesy: BIS
*
http://www.firstscience.com/site/images/articles/perception/faces.jpg
More reading: http://www.firstscience.com/site/articles/perception.asp
*I bring all of this up again because of an article I saw on Mona Lisa. Even if it is hokus pokus, it relates to what I’m talking about in terms of extracting numbers and ratios from faces.
Updated: 05:25 AM EST
Scientists Figure Out Why Mona Lisa Smiles
By TOBY STERLING, AP
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Dec. 16) - The mysterious half-smile that has intrigued viewers of the Mona Lisa for centuries isn’t really that difficult to interpret, Dutch researchers said Thursday.
She was smiling because she was happy - 83 percent happy, to be exact, according to scientists from the University of Amsterdam.
In what they viewed as a fun demonstration of technology rather than a serious experiment, the researchers scanned a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece and subjected it to cutting-edge “emotion recognition” software, developed in collaboration with the University of Illinois.
The result showed the painting’s famous subject was 83 percent happy, 9 percent disgusted, 6 percent fearful and 2 percent angry. She was less than 1 percent neutral, and not at all surprised.
Leonardo began work on the painting in 1503, and it now hangs in the Louvre in Paris.
The work, also known as “La Gioconda,” is believed to have portrayed the wife of Francesco del Giocondo. The title is a play on her husband’s name, and also means “the jolly lady” in Italian.
Harro Stokman, a professor at the University of Amsterdam involved in the experiment, said the researchers knew the results would be unscientific - the software isn’t designed to register subtle emotions. So it couldn’t detect the hint of sexual suggestion or disdain many have read into Mona Lisa’s eyes.
In addition, the technology is designed for use with modern digital films and images, and subjects first need to be scanned in a neutral emotionless state to accurately detect their current emotion.
Lead researcher Nicu Sebe took the challenge as seriously as he could, using the faces of 10 women of Mediterranean ancestry to create a composite image of a neutral expression. He then compared that to the face in the painting, scoring it on the basis of six emotions: happiness, surprise, anger, disgust, fear and sadness.
“Basically, it’s like casting a spider web over the face to break it down into tiny segments,” Stokman said. “Then you look for minute differences in the flare of the nostril or depth of the wrinkles around the eyes.”
Stokman said with a reading of 83 percent, it’s clear happiness was the woman’s main emotion.
Biometrics experts not involved with the experiment said the results were interesting even if they aren’t the last word on the Mona Lisa.
“Facial recognition technology is advancing rapidly, but emotional recognition is really still in its infancy,” said Larry Hornak, director of the Center for Identification Technology Research at West Virginia University.
“It sounds like they did try to use a data set, even if it was small, and that’s typical of work in an area like this that’s relatively new. It’s an interesting result,” he said.
Stokman said he knew the University of Amsterdam effort won’t prove or disprove controversial theories about the painting. One is that it was actually a self-portrait of Leonardo himself as a woman.
“But who knows, in 30, 40, 50 years, maybe they’ll be able to tell what was on her mind,” Stokman said.
Hornak agreed the idea was entertaining.
“It’s always fun to apply technology to areas of public interest, and sometimes you can come up with results that are very illuminating,” he said.
Jim Wayman, a biometrics researcher at San Jose State University agreed.
“It’s hocus pocus, not serious science,” Wayman said. "But it’s good for a laugh, and it doesn’t hurt anybody.
While it appears time of the month and one’s own level of attractiveness may affect who women are looking for in terms of a partner, we know that there are plenty of men that women find sexy and think or even fantasize about who they don’t see fit as a real world mate. I believe a general ‘sexy’ exists.
