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Face Averaging
Scientists and philosophers have been debating the definition of beauty for centuries. Based upon our research, we believe that a facial configuration close to the population mean is fundamental to attractiveness (for more details, visit our Research Page. To test this and related questions, we create images that are averages of various numbers of faces using image morphing technology.
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| 4 Face Composite |
8 Face Composite |
16 Face Composite |
32 Face Composite |
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| 4 Face Composite |
8 Face Composite |
16 Face Composite |
32 Face Composite |
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| 4 Face Composite |
8 Face Composite |
16 Face Composite |
32 Face Composite |
To create these faces, images of male and female college students are digitized (turned in little dots of lightness and darkness called "pixels"). Because images of faces can be represented by a matrix of pixel values, we can mathematically average them together. Once digitized and averaged together, we can turn the pixel values back into images and have the composite faces rated for attractiveness (see Langlois & Roggman, 1990; Langlois et al., 1994). Would you like to see image morphing in action? Take a look at our movies using actual faces and the resulting face composites:
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