- Joined
- Nov 20, 2019
- Messages
- 801
- Reputation
- 774
There is a widespread belief that a downturned medial canthus is a masculine dimorphic trait, however the following study suggests the opposite:
To measure the degree of inclination of the medial canthus, they utilized the medial canthal tilt.
The medial canthal tilt is the angle formed by a horizontal line passing through the lowest point of the medial canthus and a line bisecting the medial caruncle at its lateral end.
Example of the measurement:
It depends solely on the inclination of the medial canthus and is not affected in any way by the lateral canthus position.
Now that we know what the medial canthal tilt is, i will include some quotes and images from the study:
"Sixty-six female faces from a high-resolution database of 18- to 30-year-old faces collected over a 2-year period from the University of Toronto student body was used for the study."
"The medial canthal tilt was artificially accentuated for each female face in the database, using Adobe Photoshop CS, creating 66 very subtly altered female faces. Both the altered and unaltered faces were presented side by side in each slide (Fig. 4)."
"Undergraduate student judges from McGill University were recruited and asked to make a forced choice between the unfamiliar faces, as to whether the face on the right or left side of the presented slide was more attractive."
"Female faces with accentuated medial canthal tilt were preferred 93% of the time over unmodified faces, given that if the faces were equal in attractiveness, the faces with accentuated medial canthal tilt should have been chosen 50% of the time. No significant difference between male (94% preference) and female (92% preference) judges was noted."
Basically, images modified to have a downturned medial canthus were preferred in almost all cases, this led the authors of the study to the following conclusion:
"The experimental data presented strongly suggest that medial canthal tilt is a featural cue of some importance in female human facial attractiveness. There is some evidence for identifying medial canthal tilt as both a sexually dimorphic and neotenic feature. Accentuating the medial canthal tilt has the side effect of producing the illusion of a more oblique palpebral fissure."
According to them a downturned medial canthus is a feminine dimorphic and neotenous trait, i personally disagree with this.
The personal conclusion that I draw from this study is that a downturned medial canthus is neither a masculine or feminine dimorphic trait, in my opinion it is a desired trait in both genders that has nothing to do with sexual dimorphism.
What are your thoughts about this? Discuss.
Is medial canthal tilt a powerful cue for facial attractiveness? - PubMed
Medial canthal tilt appears to be a powerful cue used in judging human female facial attractiveness. Its power may be due to its relation to the neotenic and sexually dimorphic cue of palpebral fissure inclination.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
To measure the degree of inclination of the medial canthus, they utilized the medial canthal tilt.
The medial canthal tilt is the angle formed by a horizontal line passing through the lowest point of the medial canthus and a line bisecting the medial caruncle at its lateral end.
Example of the measurement:
It depends solely on the inclination of the medial canthus and is not affected in any way by the lateral canthus position.
Now that we know what the medial canthal tilt is, i will include some quotes and images from the study:
"Sixty-six female faces from a high-resolution database of 18- to 30-year-old faces collected over a 2-year period from the University of Toronto student body was used for the study."
"The medial canthal tilt was artificially accentuated for each female face in the database, using Adobe Photoshop CS, creating 66 very subtly altered female faces. Both the altered and unaltered faces were presented side by side in each slide (Fig. 4)."
FIG. 4. Female face before and after accentuating the medial canthal tilt.
FIG. 5. Close-up of the increase in canthal tilt of the eyes (top is normal,below is accentuated tilt).
"Undergraduate student judges from McGill University were recruited and asked to make a forced choice between the unfamiliar faces, as to whether the face on the right or left side of the presented slide was more attractive."
"Female faces with accentuated medial canthal tilt were preferred 93% of the time over unmodified faces, given that if the faces were equal in attractiveness, the faces with accentuated medial canthal tilt should have been chosen 50% of the time. No significant difference between male (94% preference) and female (92% preference) judges was noted."
Basically, images modified to have a downturned medial canthus were preferred in almost all cases, this led the authors of the study to the following conclusion:
"The experimental data presented strongly suggest that medial canthal tilt is a featural cue of some importance in female human facial attractiveness. There is some evidence for identifying medial canthal tilt as both a sexually dimorphic and neotenic feature. Accentuating the medial canthal tilt has the side effect of producing the illusion of a more oblique palpebral fissure."
According to them a downturned medial canthus is a feminine dimorphic and neotenous trait, i personally disagree with this.
The personal conclusion that I draw from this study is that a downturned medial canthus is neither a masculine or feminine dimorphic trait, in my opinion it is a desired trait in both genders that has nothing to do with sexual dimorphism.
What are your thoughts about this? Discuss.