Angie's Asymmetry

Lately, it seems you can’t toss a handful of birdseed into a newsstand without hitting a cover shot of Angelina Jolie. (Though why you’d want to throw birdseed into a newsstand is beyond me.) What is it, exactly, about the philanthropist-vixen’s face that makes her so alluring? In the name of science, I decided to investigate.

First, I visited Beautycheck, a German university-run site devoted to studying human facial attractiveness, and learned that the study of pretty people is one rife with socio-perceptual complications. For their long and involved study, scientists from Regensburg U. evaluated a bunch of hypotheses, including: “averageness is attractiveness,”“attractive faces show a combination of signs of sexual maturity and babyfacedness,” and “attractive faces are symmetrical,” in addition to a couple of weirdly Aristotelian ones I won’t address here about whether beautiful people are more likely to be perceived as “good.” 

Off the bat, it’s evident that Angie’s crazy alien eyes and outsized lips are anything but average, so I decided not to bother testing the first hypothesis. (Okay, so this wasn’t such a scientific investigation after all.) Next, I moved on to sexual maturity and babyfacedness. “Sexy” face characteristics are said to include suntanned skin, fuller lips, narrower eyebrows and higher cheekbones. Four gold stars for Ms. Jolie. “Babyfaced” characteristics include large, curved forehead (check), large, round eyes (check), round cheeks and small chin (not sure about these last two traits ). Although I don’t have the digital-mapping tools to rate her sexy/baby characteristics mathematically, it seems pretty clear that Angelina is more woman than girl, with a longer list of “sexy” traits than “babyfaced” ones.

Now for the most interesting part. If I had to guess where on the symmetry spectrum Ms. Jolie would fall (where, presumably, asymmetrical equals goony and symmetrical equals hot), I would put my money on the fact that her face would display a high degree of symmetry. But it turns out this isn’t necessarily the case. Using a symmetry-measuring software application, courtesy of symmeter.com, I tested two photos of Jolie—you have to use a pic in which the person faces perfectly straight ahead, which is trickier to find than you'd think—and found that the right side of her face is somewhat broader than the left, making the symmetrized (is that a word?) versions of her photos look like a starving Maggie Gyllenhaal and Sandra Bullock on steroids, respectively (see below).

Then, as a control, I uploaded a photo of myself. To my dismay, I actually found the symmetrized photo prettier than the real me. Go figure. So what did we learn here? Well, human beauty may still be a mystery, but it’s kind of comforting to know that the most desired woman on the planet is lovely because she’s a little bit flawed. —Megan Miller

Comments

[Ben]

The photo used for symmeter in the article is noticeably tilted, which is causing the bizarre-looking result images. I rotated the image in GIMP to align the centerline vertically and ran it back into symmeter, and the mirror-images look significantly less freaky:

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/177/jolie19cf.jpg
http://img471.imageshack.us/img471/6303/jolie20ob.jpg

[E. Schwarzkopf]

The illustration used does nothing except show anyone what +15 years will accomplish.

[Joe Jackson]

Your alignment on the photo is off. If you were to take a line straight up from the chin you will notice that her Angie's head is tilted to the viewer's left.

I'm not sure what the software you used did, but PSP's alignment function and mirror produced a better result.

[Vinnie Farrey]

I was a professional Photographer for 43 years, and back when there was only black and white film it was a well known fact that EVERY person had two different sides to their face, and it was proven back in the 50's.. If you take a straight forward shot of anyone, Then make two prints of the same photograph, cut them precisely in the center, and match up the two left sides and then the two right sides you will notice that each person has a male and a female side... That is why the thin facial appearance on one and the much heavier on the other....Try it you'll like it....

[Megan Miller]

You guys are completely right. I didn't notice the photo's tilt when I ran the scan, but I can now see that the Symmeter results are different when the image is properly aligned. I feel it would be disingenuous to insert new photos, though, so consider this an acknowledgement of my error—I stand corrected. Thanks for your comments!

[viswa k]

the analysis is trying to analyse a good joke which gets an instaneous laghter.Angie'sface (why face only-everything) is to be enjoyed and wonder as god's creation. the analysis takes the happiness off the issue, I dont like it.I say she is beutiful and a joy for ever

[bzerafa]

My grandfather used this in a case in the 40's or 50's to prove a person can look different depending on what side you view them from. He had a picture of himself with 2 left and 2 rights to prove his case. I don't remember if he won or not but, this is nothing new.

Artists have known this for hundreds of years as well. Everybody has a "good side."

[Daphne]

" starving Maggie Gyllenhaal and Sandra Bullock on steroids"

this is the funniest thing that i came across to since this morning!
i needed this so bad!

thank you!

[Nick Reckmeyer]

This article was great for a good Friday laugh
Saundra Bullock on Roids hahahahaha