Psychology researchers from the University of California, San Diego and the University of Toronto found beauty is not only in the beholders' eyes, but in the eyes and their proportions. Relationships in the distance between the eyes to the distance from eyes to mouth looks like the golden ratio according to them. These proportions mainly determine how attractive a woman is.
Pamela Pallett and Stephen Link of UC San Diego and Kang Lee of the University of Toronto observed several faces and the above proportions to conclude the ideal facial features arrangement. They claimed to be succeeded in finding the ideal ratios and their relations. A woman with the optimal relations among the eyes, mouth, and the edge of the face can be called a beautiful woman, according to them.
Researchers asked four different teams of participants to compare the proportions of many female faces with their perceived attractiveness. Participants identified similar proportions for what they feel similar level of attractiveness.
Based on the responses of the participants, researchers discovered two "golden ratios," one for length and one for width.
Here are the golden ratios:
1.Faces were judged more attractive when the vertical distance between the eyes and the mouth was approximately 36 percent of the face's length
2.The horizontal distance between their eyes was approximately 46 percent of the face's width.
These proportions were found in many faces that were generally perceived as beautiful.
"People have tried and failed to find these ratios since antiquity. The ancient Greeks found what they believed was a 'golden ratio' – also known as 'phi' or the 'divine proportion' – and used it in their architecture and art. Some even suggest that Leonardo Da Vinci used the golden ratio when painting his 'Mona Lisa.' But there was never any proof that the golden ratio was special. As it turns out, it isn't. Instead of phi, we showed that average distances between the eyes, mouth and face contour form the true golden ratios," said Pallett, a post-doctoral fellow in psychology at UC San Diego and also an alumna of the department.
"We already know that different facial features make a female face attractive – large eyes, for example, or full lips," said Lee, a professor at University of Toronto and the director of the Institute of Child Study at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. "Our study conclusively proves that the structure of faces – the relation between our face contour and the eyes, mouth and nose – also contributes to our perception of facial attractiveness. Our finding also explains why sometimes an attractive person looks unattractive or vice versa after a haircut, because hairdos change the ratios."
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