Are average faces more attractive?
In 1878, when Francis Galton discovered how to overlay photographic images, he observed that an averaged face is more attractive than an average face. In other words, averaging together lots of faces will result in a face that's more attractive than the average (or median) face in the original set — although not as attractive as the most attractive one. The effect was re-discovered in 1990 , and, ever since, researchers have speculated as to why. However, a problem with these studies is the way the faces are "averaged". Typically, it means calculating the average pixel values of the faces. But unless you first align the faces, all you get is a pinkish-brown blur. So researchers first resize and align the images so the eyes and mouths line up. Highlight the features, hide the flaws The result is faces where the eyes and mouths are clearly defined, and everything else is somewhat blurry. Coincidentally, this is what women do when they put on makeup. Or early movie dir