Effect Of Sexually Dimorphic Cues On Face Preference: An Eye-tracking Study

As our society has become more multicultural, there has been a rapid growth in the amount of androgynous stars such as Yuchun Li, Lee Jun-ki who are popular in the media. It can be hard to judge the gender of androgynous mate and female stars who have more different-sex traits and lack the distinctive characteristics of gender-specific individuals, especially in the ways they dress and behave. The prominence of androgynous stars in the media has led to a social phenomenon in which many young teenagers imitate them resulting in a tot of’girly’ teenage boys and ’tomboy’ teenage girls, which has blurred the traditional gender boundaries. It becomes a social phenomenon of widespread concern. Androgyny is one kind of sexual dimorphism.Sexually dimorphic cues are body dimorphic differences after mature men and women go through puberty development, which affects facial attractiveness. Many studies found differences in preferences of sexual dimorphism in male and female faces. Previous research has consistently shown a high agreement in that feminine female faces are more attractive. However, the preference for sexual dimorphism in male faces has produced mixed results. Some studies showed a preference for more masculine faces, while some studies showed preferences for more feminine faces and some studies showed no preference for feminine faces or masculine faces.Previous studies of sexual dimorphism are mostly done in western cultures, but there is little research in the Eastern culture. Experimental materials used in previous studies is morphed faces images using sexually dimorphic technique which is well controlled the other factors except sexually dimorphic cues, but those images have no high ecological validity. People always evaluate the sexual dimorphism in the whole faces. Existence of non-face cues affect people’s preference for sexual dimorphism in previous studies. Also, previous studies used questionnaires to ask participants to choose which was more attractive in the pair of a masculine face and a feminine one transformed by the same face, the subjective self-reported limitations can not be avoided. Meanwhile, eye-tracking technology is a comparatively more objective, continuous measurement of visual preferences. In the context of appearance of androgynous stars, This study aims to examine the effect of sexually dimorphic cues in male and female faces using eye-tracking techniques and subjective evaluation within the morphed faces (having no non-face cues) and real faces (having non-face cues) between male and female participants.Study one uses morphed facial stimuli and present paired faces (masculine male faces and androgynous male faces, or feminine female faces and androgynous female faces). Then the Eyelink instrument records eye-tracking data when participants view the face stimuli. And after the disappearance of the face images, participants were asked to choose which face is more attractive. Study two carried out an extension of study one by using real face image as stimuli. The experimental procedures are consistent with the study one.Results showed that preferences for sexual dimorphism in male faces are varied by differences of experimental stimuli. The morphed masculine male faces are perceived as more attractive. The real face of both masculine and androgynous male faces are attractive, although eye-tracking data showed masculine male faces are more attractive. For the morphed faces or real faces, feminine female faces are more attractive.The main innovation of this study:the first time to introduce androgyny of sexual dimorphic cues into study, the combination of using eye tracking technology and subjective evaluation, the use of face materials with more ecological validity, and the first empirical study to understand reason of popular androgynous stars.