NTT Corporation, Atsugi, Kanagawa, Japan.
Tokyo Institute of Technology.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2021 Feb;33(2):315-340. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_01649. Epub 2020 Nov 9.
Contrary to the long-held belief of a close linkage between pupil dilation and attractiveness, we found an early and transient pupil constriction response when participants viewed an attractive face (and the effect of luminance/contrast was controlled). While human participants were making an attractiveness judgment on faces, their pupil constricted more for the more attractive (as-to-be-rated) faces. Further experiments showed that the effect of pupil constriction to attractiveness judgment extended to intrinsically esthetic visual objects such as natural scene images (as well as faces) but not to line-drawing geometric figures. When participants were asked to judge the roundness of faces, pupil constriction still correlated with their attractiveness but not the roundness rating score, indicating the automaticity of the pupil constriction to attractiveness. When pupillary responses were manipulated implicitly by relative background luminance changes (from the prestimulus screen), the facial attractiveness ratings were in accordance with the amount of pupil constriction, which could not be explained solely by simultaneous or sequential luminance contrast. The overall results suggest that pupil constriction not only reflects but, as a part of self-monitoring and attribution mechanisms, also possibly contributes to facial attractiveness implicitly.
与瞳孔扩张与吸引力之间存在紧密联系的长期观点相反，我们发现当参与者观看有吸引力的面孔时，会出现早期且短暂的瞳孔收缩反应（并且控制了亮度/对比度的影响）。当人类参与者对面孔进行吸引力判断时，他们对更有吸引力（即将被评价）的面孔的瞳孔收缩更多。进一步的实验表明，瞳孔收缩对吸引力判断的影响扩展到了内在美学视觉对象，如自然场景图像（以及面孔），但不适用于线条几何图形。当要求参与者判断面孔的圆润度时，瞳孔收缩仍然与吸引力相关，但与圆润度评分无关，这表明瞳孔收缩对吸引力的自动性。当通过相对背景亮度变化（来自刺激前屏幕）来隐式操纵瞳孔反应时，面部吸引力评分与瞳孔收缩的程度一致，这不能仅通过同时或顺序的亮度对比度来解释。总体结果表明，瞳孔收缩不仅反映了面部吸引力，而且作为自我监控和归因机制的一部分，可能也会在潜意识中对其产生影响。
