ARCH 201 ARCHITECTURAL RESEARCH 2nd Semester SY 2013-2014 Name: Gino Bjorn A.

Abrera

Prof RB Santos Date: November 20, 2013

SUBJECT: TITLE:

Reaction Paper 1 An Analysis on Beauty is in the Eye and the Mouth of the Beholden by Associate Foreign Press 2009

Beauty, at least in the context of women, has always been thought to be relative to ones sound perception and judgement. But an article published by the Associated Foreign Press suggests that there have been researches citing a quantitative aspect as to how people perceive facial beauty. According to the article, the researchers prepared four separate experiments that asked people to choose, between two images, the face that they found more attractive. The photos were of the same person but have been manipulated to show varying spaces between facial elements. What they found was a mathematical pattern on the ideal facial arrangement people normally find attractive, basing on the ratio of the spaces between facial features. The aforementioned ratio, or ratios since they found two was dubbed the new golden ratios and they identify the optimal vertical distance between the eyes and the mouth, as well as the optimal horizontal distance between the eyes. What the research also suggest is that physically altering the proportion of facial features of a subject, say for example changing her hairstyle, significantly affects our perception of attractiveness in that person since were changing those ratios. Incidentally, the ratios above correspond with those of an average face. The research, however, was limited to the study of Caucasian women as subject, and no further research was conducted to test its universality. The research, even if having its own merits, have not made me completely convinced. For one, the sample to which the study conducted was based on is limited to a certain demographic in its subject and more importantly its respondents. Therefore, we cannot conclusively and collectively say that the perception of the above-mentioned demographic is similar to another demographic. The mere fact that the data collected from the study is based on something as subjective as perception makes it a partial assessment. An associated study by the same researchers suggests that peoples perception of facial attractiveness is a result of a cognitive averaging process by which people take in all the faces they see and average them to get an ideal width ratio and an ideal length ratio.i Granted that this is an accurate assessment, we can say that our perception of attractiveness is heavily reliant on environmental conditions. If, growing up we were accustomed to and exposed to a different ratio of facial features, then we would have a different idea of what an average face is, and therefore cannot reaffirm the ratio as mentioned in the research. We would have a different definition and a different perception of what the ideal proportion of facial features should be. An attractive white American girl for a white

American man could be unattractive to a white man living elsewhere. Likewise, that same American girl could also be unattractive to a black man living in Africa unaccustomed to the ratio in her face.. The research, though making a credible effort to quantify and justify a subject that has been a matter of great interest since the ancient timesii, still falls short in clearly defining and putting into numbers the facial features that trigger attraction. What the study acknowledges, but fails to factor in, are the different environmental conditions that contribute to our perception of what is physically desirable. The social, cultural and experiential factors could dictate on our idea of what should be physically attractive, but also do not guarantee its universality. Beauty or physical attraction, for me, is still a subjective experience and therefore cannot and should not be expressed in nor limited by rational and scalar approximations.
i ii

Researchers discover new 'golden ratios' for female facial beauty. http://phys.org/news180195066.html Wikipedia Entry: Physical Attractiveness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness