1. Facial beauty and the late positive component of event‐related potentials
- Author
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Victor S. Johnston and Juan C. Oliver‐Rodriguez
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,Sociology and Political Science ,Facial beauty ,Frontal scalp ,Physical attractiveness ,Stimulus (physiology) ,Audiology ,Developmental psychology ,Gender Studies ,Random order ,History and Philosophy of Science ,Event-related potential ,medicine ,Facial attractiveness ,Psychology ,Late positive component ,General Psychology - Abstract
Research on facial attractiveness provided a method for changing the affect elicited by computer‐generated facial images by manipulating facial features and proportions. Twenty‐five male volunteers were individually exposed to a sequence of male and female computer‐generated faces, presented in a random order, during three experimental sessions. Event‐related potentials (ERPs), the electroencephalographic activity immediately following each stimulus presentation, were recorded from each participant as he viewed the stimulus material. During a final experimental session, participants were required to rate each face using a five‐point scale of physical attractiveness. Based on prior research, it was hypothesized that a late positive component (LPC) of the ERPs elicited by facial images would increase with the physical attractiveness of the face. The results indicated that (a) the LPC, with a parietal greater than frontal scalp distribution, was correlated with the beauty rating of female faces; (b) modified...
- Published
- 1997
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