Special Issue "Symmetry and Beauty"

Guest Editor
Dr. Yuka Sasaki
Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Building 149, Room 2301, 13th Street, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA
Website: http://sleep.med.harvard.edu/people/faculty/796/Yuka+Sasaki+PhD
E-Mail:
Interests: unconscious brain activity; visual/motor skill learning during wakefulness and sleep; non-invasive neuroimaging techniques including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG)

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. For the first couple of issues, to be published in 2010, the Article Processing Charges (APC) will be waived for well-prepared manuscripts. English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

• visual perception
• aesthetics
• beauty
• attractiveness
• averageness
• facial symmetry
• experimental psychology
• morphology
• shape
• pattern recognition

Title: to be added
Author: Franco Buccella
Affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Università di Napoli "Federico II", Mostra d'Oltremare pad.19, I-80125, Napoli, Italy; E-Mail: buccella@na.infn.it
Abstract: The fundamental laws of physics, classical mechanics, Maxwell equations, special and general relativity, show an elegance, strongly related to their symmetry properties. In the standard model for strong and electroweak interactions, the gauge principle derives the dynamics from the symmetry. The minimal degree of arbitrariness, which makes the beauty of well established of nature, is a consequence of the existing symmetry laws, while their spontaneous breaking may hidden the underlying simplicity.

Title: Symmetry Issues in Beauty Judgment
Author: Dahlia W. Zaidel; E-Mail: dahliaz@ucla.edu
Abstract: Symmetry has often been reported to be a critical factor in beauty assessment, whether of faces or of art, and to have a biological basis. While perfect symmetry is a critical underpinning in mate selection strategies used by animals, inconsistencies in empirical findings concerning human facial beauty and art aesthetics suggest that asymmetry also plays a role in high beauty ratings. In this paper we offer a review of some of the critical issues and describe empirical evidence that questions the importance of physiological symmetry in human facial beauty. For example, we show that hemi-faces and full-faces receive similar ratings with regards to appearance of attractiveness and femininity/masculinity but not with regards to appearance of health. The evolutionary path of human brain development, with its heavy reliance on functional (hemispheric) asymmetries as well as on symbolic cognition, can help explain why both symmetry and asymmetry play a role in beauty judgments of faces and art.

Title: Three-dimensional Facial Asymmetry in Attractive and Normal People from Childhood to Young Adulthood
Authors: Chiarella Sforza 1, Alberto Laino 2, Gaia Grandi 1, Luca Pisoni 1, Virgilio Ferruccio Ferrario 1
Affiliation: 1 Laboratorio di Anatomia Funzionale dell’Apparato Stomatognatico, Dipartimento di Morfologia Umana e Scienze Biomediche “Città Studi”, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy; E-mail: chiarella.sforza@unimi.it
2 Dental, Oral, and Maxillo-Facial Sciences, Section of Orthodontics, University Federico II, Naples, Italy
Abstract: We are currently investigating measurable esthetic characteristics in persons considered “attractive” by the media. Three-dimensional soft-tissue facial asymmetry was quantified in 380 attractive (148 males, 232 females) and 669 control (397 males, 272 females) healthy persons aged 4-30 years. The coordinates of 50 facial landmarks were collected by a computerized digitizer, and asymmetry computed. Soft-tissue facial asymmetries reduced as a function of age in all occasions. Attractive children were more symmetric than control children, but the reverse was true for young adults. The effect of symmetry on attractiveness seems to change as a function of age.

Type of Paper: Review
Title: The Relationships between Symmetry and Attractiveness and Mating Relevant Decisions and Behavior: A Review
Author: T. Joel Wade
Affiliation: Bucknell University, Department of Psychology, Lewisburg, PA 17837, USA
Abstract: Evolutionary theory based research shows that attractiveness is based on biological correlates that index appropriate estrogen and testosterone levels. Symmetry affects or plays a role in the perception of many of these correlates of attractiveness. Additionally, since attractiveness affects jealousy and infidelity perception and reactions, sexual satisfaction, and personality perception, symmetry also affects these areas. This paper reviews the literature on symmetry showing how symmetry affects: the correlates of attractiveness, sexual satisfaction, personality, and jealousy and infidelity perceptions and reactions.

Type of Paper: Review
Title: Symmetry and Beauty in Plato
Author: David Robert Lloyd (Emeritus Fellow, School of Chemistry, Trinity College Dublin 2, Ireland); E-mail: boblloyd@waitrose.com
Abstract: Although Plato writes about Beauty in many of his dialogues, particularly in the dialogue Symposium, he does not have any word equivalent to our “Symmetry”, and this concept was not formalised for another two millennia. Nevertheless, there are indications that some aspects of the concept were understood, if only intuitively. Furthermore, Plato has a very abstract concept of beauty. In particular, when he uses “beauty” to characterise the so-called “Platonic Solids” in the Timaeus, he seems to be emphasising at least their regularity. It can be argued that the way in which he specifies the detailed construction of the solids is remarkably close to a modern description in terms of (point) symmetry. For Plato, our symmetry is included in what he means by beauty.