Attractiveness Is Multimodal: Beauty Is Also in the Nose and Ear of the Beholder.

Agata Groyecka,Piotr Sorokowski,David Puts,S Craig Roberts,Katarzyna Pisanski,Jan Havlíček,Maciej Karwowski,Agnieszka Sorokowska

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00778

Abstract

Attractiveness plays a central role in human non-verbal communication and has been broadly examined in diverse subfields of contemporary psychology. Researchers have garnered compelling evidence in support of the evolutionary functions of physical attractiveness and its role in our daily lives, while at the same time, having largely ignored the significant contribution of non-visual modalities and the relationships among them. Acoustic and olfactory cues can, separately or in combination, strongly influence the perceived attractiveness of an individual and therefore attitudes and actions toward that person. Here, we discuss the relative importance of visual, auditory and olfactory traits in judgments of attractiveness, and review neural and behavioral studies that support the highly complex and multimodal nature of person perception. Further, we discuss three alternative evolutionary hypotheses aimed at explaining the function of multiple indices of attractiveness. In this review, we provide several lines of evidence supporting the importance of the voice, body odor, and facial and body appearance in the perception of attractiveness and mate preferences, and therefore the critical need to incorporate cross-modal perception and multisensory integration into future research on human physical attractiveness.

Highlights

Physical attractiveness plays a central role in the assessment of human mate value
Despite a growing body of research concerning the attractiveness of vocal and olfactory cues, these studies remain scarce compared to the vast number of studies examining visually assessed physical attractiveness, most of which focus on the face
The complexity of what people perceive as attractive highlights the need for more research on the multimodal nature of person perception, as challenging as this may be

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Physical attractiveness plays a central role in the assessment of human mate value. This has made it a widely examined topic in contemporary psychology and biology. While physical attractiveness has been extensively examined in a mating context, attractiveness plays an important role in various non-sexual social contexts such as friendship formation (Wang et al, 2010), school settings (Lerner and Lerner, 1977), and job interviews (Watkins and Johnston, 2000). It has been examined as a potential risk factor for various mental disorders (Davis et al, 2000)

ATTRACTIVENESS IS MULTIMODAL

EVOLUTIONARY SIGNIFICANCE OF MULTIMODAL INDICES OF ATTRACTIVENESS

THE COMPLEX NATURE OF MULTIMODAL PERCEPTION

CONCLUSION