Pessoas que apresentam grandes deformidades dentofaciais podem ter prejuízos sociais, pessoais e emocionais. A cirurgia ortognática é utilizada para correções dessas deformidades, que consequentemente afeta as aparências das faces dos pacientes. Este estudo teve como objetivos: 1) Avaliar amostras de faces da população de Ribeirão Preto, SP e as faces prototípicas provenientes delas, consideradas sem deformidades; 2) Analisar atratividade facial de dez pacientes submetidos a cirurgias ortognáticas nas fases pré e pós-cirúrgicas; ao relacionar suas atratividades aos parâmetros físicos alterados pela cirurgia; e também avaliar as consequências na qualidade de vida, ansiedade e auto-estima destes pacientes. As análises faciais foram frontais e obedeceram aos critérios preconizados na literatura de meios, terços e quintos faciais. A coleta de dados com os pacientes foi feita no CEDEFACE (Centro de Pesquisa e Tratamento das Deformidades Buco-Faciais). Foram obtidas fotografias nas fases pré e pós-cirúrgicas; momentos em que também foram aplicadas escalas de qualidade de vida (WHOQOL bref), de ansiedade (IDATE e Escala Analógica de Humor) e autoestima (Escala de Autoestima de Rosenberg). Dois experimentos foram realizados. Um com as fotos das faces pré e pós-cirúrgicas a fim de avaliar a atratividade facial dos pacientes antes e depois das cirurgias e outro para comparar a atratividade facial dos pacientes com a atratividade de faces prototípicas relativas ao sexo e etnia correspondentes. Nesses experimentos os julgamentos de atratividade foram provenientes de uma amostra de 40 participantes leigos. Os resultados apontaram que: 1) As análises do banco de faces e protótipos apresentaram parâmetros físicos faciais diferentes daqueles apontados na literatura, principalmente na análise dos terços e quintos; 2) A cirurgia ortognática contribuiu para o aumento da atratividade dos pacientes, embora estes ainda considerados menos atrativos que as faces prototípicas. Também foram notadas melhoria na condição psicológica por meio do Whoqol bref e diminuição da ansiedade por meio da Escala Analógica de Humor. Tais resultados apontam para a importância de estudos sobre parâmetros físicos faciais relacionados à melhoria de sua estética e que a cirurgia ortognática para o tratamento de deformidades dentofaciais pode trazer benefícios estéticos e emocionais àqueles que a procuram. / People with salient dentofacial deformities can have social, personal and emotional injury. The orthognathic surgery is used to correct these deformities, and consequently, it affects the facial appearances of the patients. The general aims of this study were: 1) Evaluate samples of faces from a population of Ribeirão Preto, SP and their prototypical faces considered as without deformities; 2) Analyze the facial attractiveness of ten patients before and after being submitted to orthognathic surgery; searching the relationship between the attractiveness and physical parameters modified on the faces by the surgery; and also assessing the effects of this surgery on the quality of life, the anxiety and the self-esteem of these patients. The facial analyses were frontal and from the halves, the thirds and the fifths of the faces. The pictures of faces before and after the orthognathic surgery were from voluntary patients from CEDEFACE (Centro de Pesquisa e Tratamento das Deformidades Buco-Faciais) at Araraquara, SP. Before and after the surgery, these patients also had their quality of life (by WHOQOL bref scale), the anxiety (by IDATE and Escala Analógica de Humor) and the selfesteem (by Escala de Auto-Estima de Rosenberg) evaluated. There were two experiments. From an experiment, forty volunteers judged the attractiveness of the faces pictured before and after the surgery. From the other experiment, the volunteers compared the attractiveness of the patient faces with the attractiveness of the prototypical faces, respectively to their sex and race. The results showed that: 1) The facial analyses of the faces from population sample of Ribeirão Preto, SP, and their prototypical faces indicated physical parameters that differ from the literature, mainly for the facial analyses of the thirds and the fifths 2) The orthognathic surgery contributed to increase the facial attractiveness of the patients, although they were still considered less attractive than the prototypical faces. Improvement in psychological condition, assessed by the Whoqol bref, and anxiety decrement, assessed by the Escala Analógica de Humor, were noticed. These results pointed out the importance to study facial analyses related to the aesthetic improvement, and that the orthognathic surgery to treat dentofacial deformities can bring aesthetic and emotional benefits to the patients.

Este projeto teve por objetivo investigar se existem diferenças nos julgamentos de atratividade de faces masculinizadas e feminilizadas entre mulheres durante a etapa folicular tardia e na etapa luteal (fases do ciclo menstrual) e se estas se correlacionam às alterações dos níveis hormonais. Foram incluídas 30 mulheres voluntárias, na faixa etária de 18 a 42 anos com ciclos menstruais regulares, com duração entre 24 e 33 dias, sem uso de anticoncepcional hormonal (AH). Foram utilizados para a avaliação da atratividade facial dois protótipos faciais: um de uma face feminina e outro de face masculina. De cada um desses protótipos foram confeccionadas mais quatro faces, cujos traços de duas foram masculinizados e das outras duas foram feminilizados em diferentes graus. Foram realizadas duas sessões experimentais para cada participante. A primeira sessão foi na etapa folicular tardia do ciclo menstrual e a segunda na etapa luteal do ciclo. Em cada sessão, a participante era instruída a ordenar decrescentemente as faces conforme o quão atraente cada uma lhe parecerá. Em seguida a participante classificava as faces em três grupos: Amigo, Inimigo e Amante. Posteriormente foi colhida a amostra de sangue para posteriores análises dos níveis hormonais. Ou seja, tanto na etapa folicular tardia quanto na luteal, as participantes avaliaram as imagens das faces e doaram uma amostra de sangue. As frequências foram comparadas e verificou-se que para as faces masculinas masculinizadas e a face neutra foram consideradas as mais atraentes na fase folicular tardia e na fase lútea. Na fase folicular tardia, para as faces masculinas, quanto mais masculinizadas elas forem, maior sua pontuação no grupo Amante. Na fase lútea, a face original masculina e todas as faces masculinas masculinizadas foram mais frequentemente classificadas ao grupo Amante, mas a face 50% masculinizada teve um aumento na qualificação de Inimigo. E finalmente, não foi verificada uma correlação entre os níveis hormonais e a preferência por faces mais masculinizadas ou feminilizada. Não foi evidenciada uma mudança significativa na preferência do julgamento das faces; observando-se que existe sempre uma preferência por faces mais masculinizadas para faces masculinas, e preferência por faces mais feminilizadas para faces femininas, independente das fases do ciclo menstrual. / This project aimed to investigate whether there are differences in attractiveness judgments of masculinized and feminized faces by women during the late follicular and the luteal phases (phases of the menstrual cycle) and whether these judgments correlate with hormonal level changes. Thirty women with age between 18 and 42 years old, with regular menstrual cycles lasting between 24 and 33 days, and without use of hormonal contraceptive (AH) were volunteers in this study. Stimuli were images of a female and a male prototypical faces that by computer morphing technique generated other faces with exaggeration of the gender traits by 25% and 50%. Two experimental sessions, the first in the late follicular phase and the second in the luteal phase, were conducted for each participant to judge the attractiveness of the faces, sorting them from the highest to lowest attractive. Finishing this task, the participant classified the faces into three groups: \"Friend\", \"Enemy\" or \"Lover.\" After each session in both menstrual phases blood sample of the participant was collected for further hormone level analysis. The masculinized male face and the original male face were chosen as more attractive in the follicular phase and the late luteal phase. Besides, in the late follicular phase, the more masculinized are the male faces, the higher is their score into the \"Lover\" group. In the luteal phase, also all masculinized and the original male faces were classified more frequently into the Lover group, but also the 50% masculinized male face was more frequently classified into the Enemy group. And finally, there was no correlation between hormone levels and preference for more masculinized or more feminized faces. Then, there is no evidence that hormonal levels change the face preferences. There was always a preference for masculinized faces to male faces, and preference for feminized faces for female faces, regardless of the menstrual cycle phases.

A simetria facial foi investigada como fator de atratividade em quatro experimentos. Fotos frontais em preto e branco de faces de homens e mulheres foram manipuladas por computação gráfica para gerar faces simétricas. No Exp. I as faces simétricas foram geradas a partir da reflexão das metades laterais, direita e esquerda, de cada face. Essas faces simétricas e suas respectivas faces naturais foram apresentadas a sujeitos para julgar o quão atrativa elas eram. Os resultados mostraram que faces assimétricas (naturais) foram julgadas como mais atrativas que as simétricas. No Exp. II utilizaram-se as mesmas faces simétricas e naturais do Exp. I, porém, excluindo-se os elementos externos da face por meio de uma moldura elíptica. Essas faces foram apresentadas aos pares e pediu-se para os participantes escolher a mais atrativa, além de julgar seu grau de atratividade. Os resultados mostraram que nenhuma foto simétrica foi julgada como mais atrativa que sua respectiva face natural, bem como as faces naturais foram mais escolhidas que as simétricas. A exclusão dos elementos externos das faces não contribuiu para aumentar o grau de atratividade das mesmas. No Exp. III as faces simétricas foram geradas por técnica de morphing a partir da imagem da face original e a sua respectiva imagem refletida. A apresentação e julgamentos das faces seguiram o modelo do Exp. II. Os resultados mostraram que nenhuma face simétrica obteve escore de atratividade maior que as naturais, mas com relação às escolhas, para faces masculinas houve maior número de escolhas para as faces simétricas. No Exp. IV foram utilizadas as mesmas faces simétricas e naturais do Exp. III, excluindo-se os elementos faciais externos. Os resultados indicaram maior escores de atratividade, bem como um maior número de escolhas das faces simétricas. Comparadas ao Exp. III houve um aumento nos escores de atratividade para as faces simétricas e uma diminuição dos escores para as faces naturais. Conclui-se que a simetria não deve ser considerada como um fator isolado na análise da atratividade facial; relações entre outros elementos podem contribuir para tornar uma face mais atrativa. / The facial symmetry was investigated as attractiveness factor in four experiments. Front pictures in black and white of men\'s and women?s faces were manipulated by graphic computation to create symmetrical faces. In Exp. I, the symmetrical faces were created starting from the lateral half right and left reflection, of each face. Those symmetrical faces and their respective natural faces were presented to people that had to judge how attractive they were. The results showed that asymmetrical faces (natural) were judged as more attractive than the symmetrical ones. In Exp. II, we used the same symmetrical and natural faces of Exp. I, however, being excluded face?s external elements through an elliptic frame. These faces were presented in pairs and we asked for the participants to choose the most attractive, besides judging the attractiveness degree. The results showed that no symmetrical picture was judged as more attractive than its respective natural face, as well as the natural faces were more chosen than the symmetrical ones. The exclusion of the external elements of the faces didn\'t contribute to increase the attractiveness degree of themselves. In Exp. III, the symmetrical faces were created by morphing technique starting from the original face image and its respective reflected image. The presentation and judgments of the faces followed the model of Exp. II. The results showed that no symmetrical face obtained score of larger attractiveness than the natural ones, but regarding the choices, for masculine faces there was larger number of choices for the symmetrical faces. In Exp. IV we used the same symmetrical and natural faces of Exp. III, being excluded the external facial elements. The results indicated larger attractiveness scores, as well as a larger number of choices fore the symmetrical faces. Comparing Exp. IV with Exp. III, we had an increase in the attractiveness scores for the symmetrical faces and a decrease of the scores for the natural faces. We concluded that the symmetry should not be considered as an isolated factor in the facial attractiveness analysis; the relationships among other elements can contribute to turn a more attractive face.

This dissertation explores the nature and ontogeny of infants' ability to match phonetic information in comparison to non-speech information in the face and voice. Previous research shows that infants' ability to match phonetic information in face and voice is robust at 4.5 months of age (e.g., Kuhl & Meltzoff, 1982; 1984; 1988; Patterson & Werker, 1999). These findings support claims that young infants can perceive structural correspondences between audio and visual aspects of phonetic input and that speech is represented amodally. It remains unclear, however, specifically what factors allow speech to be perceived amodally and whether the intermodal perception of other aspects of face and voice is like that of speech. Gender is another biologically significant cue that is available in both the face and voice. In this dissertation, nine experiments examine infants' ability to match phonetic and gender information with dynamic faces and voices. Infants were seated in front of two side-by-side video monitors which displayed filmed images of a female or male face, each articulating a vowel sound ( / a / or / i / ) in synchrony. The sound was played through a central speaker and corresponded with one of the displays but was synchronous with both. In Experiment 1,4.5-month-old infants did not look preferentially at the face that matched the gender of the heard voice when presented with the same stimuli that produced a robust phonetic matching effect. In Experiments 2 through 4, vowel and gender information were placed in conflict to determine the relative contribution of each in infants' ability to match bimodal information in the face and voice. The age at which infants do match gender information with my stimuli was determined in Experiments 5 and 6. In order to explore whether matching phonetic information in face and voice is based on featural or configural information, two experiments examined infants' ability to match phonetic information using inverted faces (Experiment 7) and upright faces with inverted mouths (Experiment 8). Finally, Experiment 9 extended the phonetic matching effect to 2-month-old infants. The experiments in this dissertation provide evidence that, at 4.5 months of age, infants are more likely to attend to phonetic information in the face and voice than to gender information. Phonetic information may have a special salience and/or unity that is not apparent in similar but non-phonetic events. The findings are discussed in relation to key theories of perceptual development. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

L’objectif central de cette thèse consiste à étudier les effets des couleurs associées au genre, particulièrement bleu et rose, sur la perception du sexe des visages. Les enregistrements électrophysiologiques de surface (potentiels évoqués cérébraux) et les données comportementales issus de mon travail indiquent que la perception du visage, au-delà de sa dimension physiologique, est soumise à l’influence de processus top-down induits par le stéréotype de la couleur bleue pour le genre masculin et de la couleur rose pour le genre féminin. Ces influences s’observent précocement au cours de l'étape d'encodage perceptif des visages. / The present thesis aims at studying the impact of the colors associated to gender, particularly blue and pink, on the perception of face gender. Our electrophysiological and behavioral data indicate that the perception of the face, beyond its physiological dimension, is subject to the influence of top-down processes induced by pink for female and blue for male stereotype. These influences are evident at early perceptual stage of face processing.

Die Planung korrektiver Eingriffe an der Ohrmuschel bei Vorliegen eines als zu groß empfundenen aurikulocephalen Winkels basierte bislang auf anthropometrisch gewonnenen Empfehlungen in der Literatur. Die menschliche Ohrmuschel ist jedoch messtechnisch schwierig zu untersuchen und weist zudem eine außerordentlich große individuelle Variabilität auf. Insoweit ist es nicht einfach, eine ideale Ohrmuschelposition zu definieren. Anthropometrische Idealwerte beruhen meist auf Morphologien, die in der Bevölkerung häufiger vorkommen und eine gewisse Durchschnittlichkeit aufweisen. Sie bewirken jedoch nicht zwangsläufig, dass Individuen mit derartigen Maßen auch als ansprechend bzw. attraktiv von ihrem Umfeld wahrgenommen werden. Chirurgische Korrekturen des abstehenden Ohres gehören heute zu den häufig durchgeführten Eingriffen innerhalb des Spektrums plastisch-ästhetischer Operationen im Kopf-Hals-Bereich. Für die Planung solcher Eingriffe ist es daher von großer Bedeutung, Zielwerte zur Verfügung zu haben, deren chirurgische Umsetzung ein gefälliges Ergebnis erwarten lässt. Das Anliegen der im Rahmen dieser Dissertation durchgeführten Studie war es, die Wirkung unterschiedlicher Ohrmuschelpositionen auf ein Jurorenkollektiv zu untersuchen. Hierfür wurden 44 Studierende der Zahnmedizin der Universität Leipzig als Juroren gewonnen. Sie erhielten Klone eines weiblichen und eines männlichen Modells zur Bewertung vorgelegt. Die Erfassung der Ergebnisse erfolgte mittels Fragebögen. Die Klone wurden nach Anfertigung von Porträtfotografien eines freiwilligen weiblichen bzw. männlichen Probanden mit Hilfe von metrisch definierten, am Ohr zu befestigenden Distanzkeilen erstellt und durch digitale Nachbearbeitung komplettiert. Sie simulierten aurikulocephale Winkel von 0° bis 90° in Schritten von jeweils 6°. Die Juror*innen hatten die Möglichkeit, einen positiven (maximale Attraktivität) und negativen (minimale Attraktivität) Favoriten jeweils für die weiblichen und männlichen Klone auszuwählen und einen Übergangsklon für wiederum beide Geschlechter zu definieren, der die Grenze zwischen diesen Extremen repräsentiert. Die Ergebnisse der Studie zeigen, dass weibliche und männliche Juroren bei der Bewertung von Ohrmuschelpositionen übereinstimmende ästhetische Präferenzen haben. Bevorzugt werden eher unauffällige, enganliegende Ohren. Extremwerte des aurikulocephalen Winkels wie 90° oder auch 0° werden demgegenüber als besonders unattraktiv empfunden. Neben diesen übereinstimmenden Bewertungen konnten auch signifikante Unterschiede im Urteilsverhalten festgestellt werden. Der beim Menschen bekannte Geschlechtsdimorphismus beeinflusst offenbar auch die Erwartungshaltung von Juror*innen in Bezug auf das für Frauen bzw. Männer ästhetisch „zulässige“ Ausmaß des Abstehens der Ohrmuschel. So wird Männern insgesamt ein etwas stärker abstehendes Ohr eher zugestanden als Frauen. Anhand der Gesamtheit aller Bewertungen des Jurorenkollektivs wurde zudem als Idealmaß für den aurikulocephalen Winkel der Bereich zwischen 21–24° ermittelt. Limitationen der Studie ergeben sich aus der begrenzten Anzahl der Juror*innen, die nicht repräsentativ für eine größere Gesellschaft ist. Auch stellt die virtuelle Herstellung symmetrischer Ohrmuschelpositionen eine Abstraktion bzw. Vereinfachung der Realität dar. Außerdem ist die Vermessung und Positionierung der flexiblen und nicht plan geformten Ohrmuschel schwierig, so dass kleinere Toleranzen von 2-3° auftreten können.

No description available.

In infancy, the ability to tell the difference between two faces within a category (e.g., species, race) that is infrequently experienced declines from 6 to 9 months of age (Kelly et al., 2009, 2007; Pascalis et al., 2005; Pascalis, de Haan, & Nelson, 2002; Scott & Monesson, 2009). This decline in the ability to distinguish faces is known as "perceptual narrowing" and has recently been found to be absent when infants are given experience matching a face with an individual-level proper name between 6 to 9 months of age (Scott & Monesson, 2009). Additionally, individual-level experience between 6 and 9 months of age has led to neural changes at 9 months of age (Scott & Monesson, 2010). It is currently unclear whether brief, early experience between 6 and 9 months leads to sustained behavioral advantages and lasting neural changes. In order to answer these questions, the current study recruited and tested children who previously participated in a face training study when they were infants (Scott & Monesson, 2009, 2010). Findings revealed that individual-level experience with faces during the first year of life: 1) resulted in faster reaction time for faces outside of the trained category, and 2) led to more adult-like neural representations of faces outside of the trained category 3-4 years later. These results suggest that experience with individual-level learning in the first year of life is generalized to visually similar, but environmentally relevant face categories.

The Muslim headscarf conceals the hair and other external features of a face. For this reason it may have implications for the recognition of such faces. The experiments reported in this thesis aimed to investigate anecdotal reports, which suggested that headscarf wearing females are more difficult to recognise. This was done by employing a series of experiments which involved a yes/no recognition task. The stimuli that were used were images of South Asian females who were photographed wearing a Muslim headscarf (HS), with their own hair visible (H), and a third set of stimuli were produced in which their external features were cropped (CR). Most importantly, participants either took part in the condition in which the state of the external features remained the same between the learning and test stage (Same) or the condition in which they were switched between the two stages (Switch). In one experiment participants completed a Social Contact Questionnaire. Surprisingly, in the Same condition, there was no difference in the recognition rates of faces that were presented with hair, with headscarf, or cropped faces. However, participants in the Switch condition performed significantly worse than those in the Same condition. It was also found that there was no difference in the % of fixations to the external features between the Same and Switch condition, which implied that the drop in performance between the two conditions was not mediated by eye-movements. These results suggest that the internal and external features of a face are processed interactively and, although the external features were not fixated on, a manipulation to them caused a drop in performance. This was confirmed in a separate experiment in which participants were unable to ignore the external features when they were asked to judge the similarity of the internal features of pairs of faces. Pairs of headscarf faces were rated as being more similar compared to pairs of faces with hair. Finally, for one group of participants it was found that contact with headscarf-wearing females was positively correlated with the recognition of headscarf-wearing faces. It was concluded that the headscarf per se did not impair face recognition and that there is enough information in the internal features of a face for optimal recognition, however, performance was disrupted when the presence or absence of the headscarf was manipulated.

The human visual system must quickly and accurately deploy task-and-object-specific processing to successfully navigate the environment, which suggests several interesting research questions: What is the nature of these strategies? Are they flexible? To what extent is this behaviour optimal given the natural statistics of the environment? In this thesis, I explored these questions using human faces, a complex and dynamic source of socially relevant information that we encounter throughout our lives. Specifically, I conducted several experiments examining the role of horizontally-oriented spatial frequency components in face identification. In Chapter 2, I use computational modelling to demonstrate that the structure conveyed by these components is maximally diagnostic for face identity, and show that selective processing of this structure predicts both face identification performance and the face inversion effect. In Chapter 3, I quantify the bandwidth utilized by human observers and relate this sampling strategy to the information structure of face stimuli. In Chapter 4, I show that the selective sampling described in Chapters 2 and 3 is driven by information from the eyes. Finally, in Chapter 5, I show that the impaired horizontal selectivity associated with face inversion is enhanced by practice identifying inverted faces. Together, these experiments characterize a stimulus with differentially diagnostic information sources that, through experience, becomes selectively processed in a manner associated with task performance. These results contribute to our understanding of expert object processing and may have implications for observers experiencing face perception deficits. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)