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Examination of morphological traits of children's faces related to perceptions of cuteness using Gaussian process ordinal regression

Konrad Lorenz, an ethologist, proposed that certain physical elements are perceived as cute and induce caretaking behavior in other individuals, with the evolutionary function of enhancing offspring survival. He called these features Kindchenschema, baby schema. According to his introspection, these...

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Autores principales: Komori, Masashi, Teraji, Teppei, Shiroshita, Keito, Nittono, Hiroshi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9669709/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36405163
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.979341
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author Komori, Masashi
Teraji, Teppei
Shiroshita, Keito
Nittono, Hiroshi
author_facet Komori, Masashi
Teraji, Teppei
Shiroshita, Keito
Nittono, Hiroshi
author_sort Komori, Masashi
collection PubMed
description Konrad Lorenz, an ethologist, proposed that certain physical elements are perceived as cute and induce caretaking behavior in other individuals, with the evolutionary function of enhancing offspring survival. He called these features Kindchenschema, baby schema. According to his introspection, these include a large forehead, chubby round features, and chubby cheeks. Previous studies are limited to examining the effects of these facial features on perceived cuteness. However, other morphological factors may be related to perceived cuteness. This study uses Bayesian optimization, one of the global sequential optimization methods for estimating unknown functions, to search for facial morphological features that enhance the perceptions of facial cuteness. We applied Bayesian optimization incorporating Gaussian process ordinal regression (GPOR), which allows an estimation of the latent cuteness function based on evaluations using the Likert scale. A total of 96 preschool children provided the facial images used in this study. We summarized the facial shape variations using methodologies of geometric morphometrics and principal component analysis (PCA) up to the third principal component (PC), which we refer to as the face space. A total of 40 participants evaluated the images created by warping the average facial texture of the children's faces with randomly generated parameters in the face space. Facial traits related to perceived cuteness were estimated based on the averaged cuteness function. Perceived cuteness was linked to the relative lower position of facial components and narrower jawline but not to the forehead height.
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spelling pubmed-96697092022-11-18 Examination of morphological traits of children's faces related to perceptions of cuteness using Gaussian process ordinal regression Komori, Masashi Teraji, Teppei Shiroshita, Keito Nittono, Hiroshi Front Psychol Psychology Konrad Lorenz, an ethologist, proposed that certain physical elements are perceived as cute and induce caretaking behavior in other individuals, with the evolutionary function of enhancing offspring survival. He called these features Kindchenschema, baby schema. According to his introspection, these include a large forehead, chubby round features, and chubby cheeks. Previous studies are limited to examining the effects of these facial features on perceived cuteness. However, other morphological factors may be related to perceived cuteness. This study uses Bayesian optimization, one of the global sequential optimization methods for estimating unknown functions, to search for facial morphological features that enhance the perceptions of facial cuteness. We applied Bayesian optimization incorporating Gaussian process ordinal regression (GPOR), which allows an estimation of the latent cuteness function based on evaluations using the Likert scale. A total of 96 preschool children provided the facial images used in this study. We summarized the facial shape variations using methodologies of geometric morphometrics and principal component analysis (PCA) up to the third principal component (PC), which we refer to as the face space. A total of 40 participants evaluated the images created by warping the average facial texture of the children's faces with randomly generated parameters in the face space. Facial traits related to perceived cuteness were estimated based on the averaged cuteness function. Perceived cuteness was linked to the relative lower position of facial components and narrower jawline but not to the forehead height. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-11-03 /pmc/articles/PMC9669709/ /pubmed/36405163 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.979341 Text en Copyright © 2022 Komori, Teraji, Shiroshita and Nittono. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Komori, Masashi
Teraji, Teppei
Shiroshita, Keito
Nittono, Hiroshi
Examination of morphological traits of children's faces related to perceptions of cuteness using Gaussian process ordinal regression
title Examination of morphological traits of children's faces related to perceptions of cuteness using Gaussian process ordinal regression
title_full Examination of morphological traits of children's faces related to perceptions of cuteness using Gaussian process ordinal regression
title_fullStr Examination of morphological traits of children's faces related to perceptions of cuteness using Gaussian process ordinal regression
title_full_unstemmed Examination of morphological traits of children's faces related to perceptions of cuteness using Gaussian process ordinal regression
title_short Examination of morphological traits of children's faces related to perceptions of cuteness using Gaussian process ordinal regression
title_sort examination of morphological traits of children's faces related to perceptions of cuteness using gaussian process ordinal regression
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9669709/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36405163
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.979341
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