Adaptation effects to attractiveness of face photographs and art portraits are domain-specific

Gregor U Hayn-Leichsenring; Nadine Kloth; Stefan R Schweinberger; Christoph Redies

doi:10.1068/i0583

Adaptation effects to attractiveness of face photographs and art portraits are domain-specific

Iperception. 2013 Jun 11;4(5):303-16. doi: 10.1068/i0583. eCollection 2013.

Authors

Gregor U Hayn-Leichsenring¹, Nadine Kloth², Stefan R Schweinberger³, Christoph Redies⁴

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Anatomy I, Jena University Hospital, University of Jena School of Medicine, Teichgraben 7, 07740 Jena, Germany; and DFG Research Unit Person Perception, University of Jena, Leutragraben 1, 07743 Jena, Germany; e-mail: gregorhaynleichsenring@googlemail.com.
² ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, School of Psychology, The University of Western Australia, Australia; and DFG Research Unit Person Perception, University of Jena, Leutragraben 1, 07743 Jena, Germany; e-mail: nadine.kloth@uwa.edu.au.
³ Institute of Psychology, University of Jena, Am Steiger 3, 07743 Jena, Germany; and DFG Research Unit Person Perception, University of Jena, Leutragraben 1, 07743 Jena, Germany; e-mail: stefan.schweinberger@uni-jena.de.
⁴ Institute of Anatomy I, Jena University Hospital, University of Jena School of Medicine, Teichgraben 7, 07740 Jena, Germany; and DFG Research Unit Person Perception, University of Jena, Leutragraben 1, 07743 Jena, Germany; e-mail: redies@mti.uni-jena.de.

PMID: 24349690
PMCID: PMC3859548
DOI: 10.1068/i0583

Abstract

We studied the neural coding of facial attractiveness by investigating effects of adaptation to attractive and unattractive human faces on the perceived attractiveness of veridical human face pictures (Experiment 1) and art portraits (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 revealed a clear pattern of contrastive aftereffects. Relative to a pre-adaptation baseline, the perceived attractiveness of faces was increased after adaptation to unattractive faces, and was decreased after adaptation to attractive faces. Experiment 2 revealed similar aftereffects when art portraits rather than face photographs were used as adaptors and test stimuli, suggesting that effects of adaptation to attractiveness are not restricted to facial photographs. Additionally, we found similar aftereffects in art portraits for beauty, another aesthetic feature that, unlike attractiveness, relates to the properties of the image (rather than to the face displayed). Importantly, Experiment 3 showed that aftereffects were abolished when adaptors were art portraits and face photographs were test stimuli. These results suggest that adaptation to facial attractiveness elicits aftereffects in the perception of subsequently presented faces, for both face photographs and art portraits, and that these effects do not cross image domains.

Keywords: adaptation; aesthetics; art perception; attractiveness; beauty; face perception.