Aesthetics of faces
Subtitle
Behavioral and electrophysiological indices of evaluative and descriptive judgment processes
Publication date
2008-05-12
Document type
Forschungsartikel
Author
Organisational unit
Universität Leipzig, Institut für Allgemeine Psychologie
ISSN
Series or journal
Journal of Psychophysiology
Periodical volume
22
Periodical issue
1
First page
41
Last page
57
Peer-reviewed
✅
Part of the university bibliography
Nein
Keyword
Judgment process
Evaluative judgment
Descriptive judgment
Event-related potential (ERP)
Aesthetics
Attractiveness research
Abstract
Temporal and brain topographic characteristics of the aesthetic judgment of male and female faces were investigated, using event-related potentials and reaction times. The evaluative aesthetic judgment of facial beauty (beautiful vs. not beautiful) was contrasted with a nonevaluative descriptive judgment of head shape (round vs. oval). Analysis showed longer reaction times in the descriptive than in the evaluative task, suggesting that the descriptive judgment demanded more cognitive effort and may entail greater uncertainty. Electrophysiologically, the evaluative judgment elicited a negativity (400 to 480 ms) for the judgment not beautiful, maximal over midline leads. A comparable deflection has been previously reported for evaluative judgments of graphic patterns. It was interpreted as an impression formation independent of the type of stimulus material, occurring when an aesthetic entity is judged intentionally. Besides this effect, which was independent of the gender of the face, the temporal characteristics of aesthetic evaluation differed depending on the gender of the face. We report a negativity for male faces only (280–440 ms) and a late positivity (520–1200 ms), which was stronger for female faces, both concerning not beautiful judgments. Thus, the evaluation of male and female facial beauty was processed in different time-windows. The descriptive judgment round elicited a larger posterior positivity compared with oval (320–620 ms). These results complement investigations of the architecture and time course of evaluative aesthetic and descriptive judgment processes, using faces as stimulus material.
Version
Published version
Access right on openHSU
Metadata only access