Is beauty in the eyes and ears of the beholder?
Poster Presentation

Sarah Casey
Trinity College Dublin

Andrew Woods
University of Wales, Bangor

Fiona Newell
Trinity College Dublin

     Abstract ID Number: 204
     Full text: Not available
     Last modified: June 9, 2006
     Presentation date: 06/19/2006 4:00 PM in Hamilton Building, Foyer
     (View Schedule)

Abstract
The overwhelming majority of research to date has investigated attractiveness in vision only however, recent research has demonstrated that an individual’s voice also holds attractiveness value. Here we asked whether face and voice information is integrated in judgements of attractiveness or whether both are independently assessed. In Experiment 1 we investigated whether any relationship existed between attractiveness ratings for a set of still face images, silent moving images, and audio voice tracks. Rating to the silent movie and still visual stimuli were highly correlated, however there was no correlation between audio and either stills or silent movie attractiveness ratings. In Experiment 2a we generated multisensory stimuli by pairing the silent moving images and audio tracks to form movies in which the face and voice were either congruent or incongruent for attractiveness. Attractiveness ratings for both conditions correlated positively with those for the silent movies only. We also found no difference in attractiveness ratings for congruent and incongruent stimuli although ratings to these multisensory stimuli were significantly higher than the vision only stimuli. To test for possible visual capture of attractiveness, in Experiment 2b participants were instructed to rate only the voice in each movie. Again ratings for both congruent and incongruent conditions correlated positively with audio only attractiveness ratings suggesting that facial information had no influence on attractiveness of the voice. Our findings suggest that facial and voice information can act as independent signals for judgements of attractiveness.