Pazhoohi Farid
School of Psychology, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK.
Arch Sex Behav. 2025 Mar 19. doi: 10.1007/s10508-025-03131-4.
Eyelashes have evolved as a protective feature for the eyes, offering defense against external dangers such as contamination, excessive evaporation, and shear stress from airflow. They may also serve as indicators of an individual's health, since various diseases, both congenital and non-congenital, can influence eyelash length. Building on the argument of evolutionary functionality, recent research into human preferences for eyelash length, from an evolutionary perspective, has identified an inverted-U preference pattern across all ethnic groups. However, this research primarily focused on the attractiveness of eyelash length, leaving questions about the alignment of health perceptions and attractiveness and how eyelash length might signal sexual receptivity unaddressed. The current study aimed to fill these gaps by investigating perceptions of health and sexual receptivity as functions of eyelash length, hypothesizing that while long eyelashes may be rated as less attractive, they could be perceived as signals of sexual receptivity. To explore these questions, participants evaluated the perceived health, attractiveness, and sexual receptivity of female faces from Indian, Asian, Black, and White groups, featuring a range of eyelash lengths from none to half the eye's width. Results confirmed that both health and attractiveness perceptions follow an inverted-U pattern, peaking at eyelash lengths about one-third the width of the eye, consistently across different ethnicities and regardless of the participant's sex. Additionally, results showed that eyelash length is positively associated with perceived sexual receptivity, suggesting that longer eyelashes might signal openness to casual relationships, despite lower attractiveness and health ratings at lengths beyond the optimal one-third ratio. This indicates a potential reproductive strategy linked to wearing long eyelashes and reveals that perceptions of attractiveness and sexual receptivity can diverge.
睫毛进化成为眼睛的一种保护特征，可抵御外部危险，如污染、过度蒸发以及气流产生的剪切力。它们也可能是个人健康的指标，因为各种先天性和非先天性疾病都会影响睫毛长度。基于进化功能的观点，最近从进化角度对人类对睫毛长度的偏好进行的研究发现，所有种族都存在倒U形偏好模式。然而，这项研究主要关注睫毛长度的吸引力，而未解决健康认知与吸引力之间的一致性问题，以及睫毛长度如何暗示性接受度的问题。当前的研究旨在通过调查健康认知和性接受度如何随睫毛长度变化来填补这些空白，假设长睫毛虽然可能被认为吸引力较低，但可能被视为性接受度的信号。为了探究这些问题，参与者对来自印度、亚洲、黑人及白人组的女性面部的健康感、吸引力和性接受度进行了评估，这些面部的睫毛长度从无到眼睛宽度的一半不等。结果证实，健康认知和吸引力认知均呈倒U形模式，在睫毛长度约为眼睛宽度三分之一时达到峰值，在不同种族中一致，且与参与者的性别无关。此外，结果表明睫毛长度与感知到的性接受度呈正相关，这表明尽管睫毛长度超过最佳三分之一比例时吸引力和健康评分较低，但较长的睫毛可能暗示对随意关系持开放态度。这表明了一种与佩戴长睫毛相关的潜在生殖策略，并揭示出吸引力认知和性接受度认知可能存在差异。
