Asia-Pacific Conference on Vision 2019年大会において、公募シンポジウム「Science of facial attractiveness」が開催されました

• 日時：7月31日 9:00-11:00
• 会場：立命館大学いばらきキャンパス（大阪府茨木市）
• 参加者：約40名（外国人参加者15名）

立命館大学（大阪）で開催されたAsia-Pacific Conference on Vision 2019年大会にて、『Science of Facial Attractiveness』と題した顔魅力科学についてのシンポジウムを行いました。国外スピーカーとしてイタリア、ミラノ-ビコッカ大学からザイラ・カッタネーオ氏、英国ロンドン大学から石津智大氏の二氏を招聘し、また国内からは内藤智之氏（大阪大学）、三枝千尋氏（株式会社花王）、中村航洋氏（早稲田大学）の三氏が参加されました。脳刺激法、脳機能イメージング、機械学習、認知プロセス、数理モデリングと多様なアプローチからの幅広い視点で、顔魅力について最前線の研究成果が発表されました。参加者からも様々な質問や意見が提案され、活発な議論がおこなわれました。

＜プログラム＞

Speakers:

Zaira Cattaneo (University of Milano-Bicocca)

The impact of brain stimulation in modulating visual preference for faces and paintings

Tomoyuki Naito (Osaka University)

Transplantation of taste for facial attractiveness of individuals to deep convolutional neural network

Chihiro Saegusa (Kao Corporation)

Judgments of facial attractiveness as a dynamic combination of internal/external parts

Koyo Nakamura (Waseda University)

Data-driven mathematical modeling of facial attractiveness

Tomohiro Ishizu (University College London)

Varieties of attractiveness and their brain responses

Symposium Abstracts:

Visual attraction pervades our daily lives. It influences and guides our moods, behaviours, and decisions. Scientists apply psychological and cognitive neuroscientific methods to disentangle the seemingly complex attractiveness evaluation, and the rigorous scientific findings are growing quickly. Facial attractiveness has been a central interest in the science of attraction. In this symposium, we present new insights on attractiveness judgments with a focus on face perception from a wide range of methods including behavioural testing, computational modelling, neuroimaging, and brain-stimulation. We anticipate that it will engage interests of the APCV attendance and that it will draw a large and lively audience.

Firstly, we show a data-driven mathematical modelling which reveals physical features of a face contributing to attractiveness judgments (Nakamura). We, then, present a study which visualises a 'mental template' of attractive faces by applying the reverse correlation technique and deep convolutional neural network (Naito). The first two talks can elucidate physical and measurable features of attractive faces and what contributes to the judgment. Secondly, we show how facial attractiveness judgment can be formed. We present evidence that attractiveness judgment is a dynamic process in which each facial feature (e.g. eyes, nose, hairstyle) is integrated over time to construct a final evaluation (Saegusa). Next, we discuss the brain systems, that are possibly underlying in attractiveness judgment on faces and compare them with non-facial/non-biological stimuli in relation to cortical-subcortical networks (Ishizu). Finally, we demonstrate the 'causal role' of those brain sites when judging attractiveness of faces and other visual stimuli with the application of non-invasive brain-stimulation techniques (Cattaneo). Understanding attractiveness evaluations and the impact of visual experiences is an indispensable part of understanding human interaction with the visual world. This symposium, showcasing diverse methods to approach the question, will provide new insights into the studies on attraction and attractiveness.

(by T. Ishizu, University College London)