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How your brain decides what is beautiful

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    It's 1878.
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    Sir Francis Galton
    gives a remarkable talk.
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    He's speaking to the anthropologic
    institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
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    Known for his pioneering work
    in human intelligence,
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    Galton is a brilliant polymath.
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    He's an explorer,
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    an anthropologist,
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    a sociologist,
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    a psychologist,
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    and a statistician.
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    He's also a eugenist.
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    In this talk,
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    he presents a new technique
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    by which he can combine photographs
    and produce composite portraits.
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    This technique could be used
    to characterize different types of people.
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    Galton thinks that if he combines
    photographs of violent criminals,
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    he will discover the face of criminality.
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    But to his surprise,
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    the composite portrait that he produces
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    is beautiful.
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    Galton's surprising finding
    raises deep questions.
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    What is beauty?
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    Why do certain configurations of line
    and color and form excite us so?
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    For most of human history,
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    these questions have been approached
    using logic and speculation,
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    but in the last few decades,
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    scientists have addressed
    the question of beauty
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    using ideas from evolutionary psychology
    and tools of neuroscience.
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    We're beginning to glimpse
    the why and the how of beauty,
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    at least in terms of what it means
    for the human face and form.
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    And in the process,
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    we're stumbling upon some surprises.
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    When it comes to seeing
    beauty in each other,
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    while this decision is certainly
    subjective for the individual,
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    it's sculpted by factors that contribute
    to the survival of the group.
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    Many experiments have shown
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    that a few basic parameters contribute
    to what makes a face attractive.
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    These include averaging, symmetry
    and the effects of hormones.
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    And let's take each one of these in turn.
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    Galton's finding
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    that composite or average faces
    are typically more attractive
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    than each individual face
    that contributes to the average
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    has been replicated many times.
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    This laboratory finding fits
    with many people's intuitions.
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    Average faces represent the central
    tendencies of a group.
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    People with mixed features
    represent different populations,
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    and presumably harbor
    greater genetic diversity
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    and adaptability to the environment.
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    Many people find mixed-race
    individuals attractive,
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    and inbred families less so.
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    The second factor that contributes
    to beauty is symmetry.
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    People generally find symmetric faces
    more attractive than asymmetric ones.
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    Developmental abnormalities
    are often associated with asymmetries,
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    and in plants, animals and humans,
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    asymmetries often arise
    from parasitic infections.
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    Symmetry, it turns out,
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    is also an indicator of health.
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    In the 1930s,
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    a man named Maksymilian Faktorowicz
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    recognized the importance
    of symmetry for beauty
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    when he designed the beauty micrometer.
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    With this device,
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    he could measure minor asymmetric flaws
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    which he could then make up for
    with products he sold from his company,
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    named brilliantly after himself:
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    Max Factor,
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    which as you know is one of the world's
    most famous brands for makeup.
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    The third factor that contributes
    to facial attractiveness
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    is the effect of hormones.
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    And here, I need to apologize
    for confining my comments
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    to heterosexual norms.
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    But estrogen and testosterone
    play important roles
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    in shaping features
    that we find attractive.
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    Estrogen produces features
    that signal fertility.
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    Men typically find women attractive
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    who have elements of both
    youth and maturity.
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    A face that's too baby-like might
    mean that the girl is not yet fertile,
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    so men find women attractive
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    who have large eyes,
    full lips and narrow chins
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    as indicators of youth,
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    and high cheekbones as an
    indicator of maturity.
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    Testosterone produces features
    that we regard as typically masculine.
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    These include heavier brows,
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    thinner cheeks
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    and bigger, squared-off jaws.
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    But here's a fascinating irony.
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    In many species,
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    if anything,
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    testosterone suppresses the immune system.
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    So the idea that testosterone-infused
    features are a fitness indicator
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    doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.
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    Here, the logic is turned on its head.
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    Instead of a fitness indicator,
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    scientists invoke a handicap principle.
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    The most commonly cited
    example of a handicap
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    is the peacock's tail.
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    This beautiful but cumbersome tail
    doesn't exactly help the peacock
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    avoid predators and approach peahens.
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    Why should such an extravagant
    appendage evolve?
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    Even Charles Darwin,
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    in an 1860 letter to Asa Gray wrote
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    that the sight of the peacock's tail
    made him physcially illl.
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    He couldn't explain it with his
    theory of natural selection,
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    and out of this frustration,
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    he developed the theory
    of sexual selection.
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    On this account,
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    the display of the peacock's tail
    is about sexual enticement,
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    and this enticement means
    that it's more likely
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    that the peacock will mate
    and have offspring.
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    Now, the modern twist
    on this display argument
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    is that the peacock is also
    advertising its health to the peahen.
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    Only especially fit organisms
    can afford to divert resources
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    to maintaining such
    an extravagant appendage.
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    Only especially fit men can afford
    the price that testosterone levies
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    on their immune system.
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    And by anaology,
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    think of the fact that only very
    rich men can afford
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    to pay more than $10,000 for a watch
    as a display of their financial fitness.
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    Now, many people hear these kinds
    of evoulutionary claims
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    and think they mean that we somehow
    are unconciously seeking mates
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    who are healthy,
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    and I think this idea
    is probably not right.
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    Teenagers and young adults are not
    exactly known for making decisions
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    that are predicated on health concerns.
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    But they don't have to be,
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    and let me explain why.
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    Imagine a population in which people
    have three different types of preferences:
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    for green, for orange, and for red.
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    From their point of view,
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    these preferences have
    nothing to do with health,
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    they just like what they like.
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    But if it were also the case
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    that these preferences are associated
    with the different likelihood
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    of producing offspring,
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    let's say in a ratio of [3:2:1]
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    then in the first generation,
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    there would be
    [3 greens: 2 oranges: 1 red,]
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    and in each subsequent generation,
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    the proportion of greens increase
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    so that [intention rations] 98 percent
    of this population has a green preference.
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    Now, scientists coming in
    and sampling this population
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    disover that green
    preferences are universal,
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    so the point about this
    little abstract example
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    is that while preferences
    for specific physical features
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    can be arbitrary for the individual,
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    if those features are hertiable
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    and they are associated
    with a reproductive advangtage,
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    over time,
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    they become universal for the group.
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    So what happens in the brain
    when we see beautiful people?
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    Attractive faces activate parts of our
    visual cortex in the back of the brain;
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    an area called the fusiform gyrus
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    that is especially attuned
    to processing faces,
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    and an adjacent area called
    the lateral occipital complex
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    that is especially attuned
    to processing objects.
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    In addition,
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    attractive faces activate parts
    of our reward and pleasure centers
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    in the front and deep in the brain,
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    and these include areas
    that have complicated names,
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    like the ventral striatum,
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    the [orbitofrontal] cortex
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    and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
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    Our official brain that is attuned
    to processing faces
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    interacts with our pleasure centers
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    to underpin the experience of beauty.
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    Amazingly, while we all
    engage with beauty,
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    without our knowledge,
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    beauty also engages us.
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    Our brains respond to attractive faces
    even when we're not thinking about beauty.
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    We conducted an experiement in which
    people saw a series of faces,
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    and in one condition,
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    they had to decide if a pair of faces
    were the same or a different person.
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    Even in this condition,
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    attractive faces drove neural activity
    robustly in their visual cortex
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    despite the fact that they were thinking
    about a person's identity
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    and not their beauty.
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    Another group similarly found
    automatic responses to beauty
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    within our pleasure centers.
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    So taken together,
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    these studies suggest
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    that our brain automatically
    responds to beauty
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    by linking vision and pleasure.
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    These beauty detectors,
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    it seems,
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    ping ever time we see beauty
    regardless of whatever else
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    we might be thinking.
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    We also have a "beauty is good"
    stereotype embedded in the brain.
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    Within the [orbitofrontal] cortex,
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    there's overlapping neural activity
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    in response to beauty and to goodness,
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    and this happens even when people
    aren't expllicitly thinking
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    about beauty or goodness.
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    Our brains seem to reflexively
    associate beauty and good.
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    And this reflexive association
    may be the biologic trigger
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    for the many social effects of beauty.
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    Attractive people receive
    all kinds of advantages in life.
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    They're regarded as more intelligent,
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    more trustworthy,
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    they're given higher pay
    and lesser punishments,
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    even when such judgments
    are not warranted.
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    These kinds of observations
    reveal beauty's ugly side.
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    In my lab,
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    we recently found that people with minor
    facial anomalies and disfigurements
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    are regarded as less good, less kind,
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    less intelligent, less competent
    and less hardworking.
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    Unfortunately, we also have
    a "disfigured is bad" stereotype.
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    This stereotype is probably
    exploited and magnified
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    by images in popular media
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    in which facial disfigurement
    is often used as a shorthand
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    to depict someone of villainous character.
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    We need to understand
    these kinds of implicit biases
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    if we are to overcome them,
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    and aim for a society in which
    we treat people fairly,
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    based on their behavior and not
    on the happenstance of their looks.
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    Let me leave you with one final thought.
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    Beauty is a work in progress.
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    The so-called universal
    attributes of beauty
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    were selected for --
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    during the almost two million
    years of the Pleistocene.
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    Life was nasty, brutish
    and a very long time ago.
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    The selection criteria for reproductive
    success from that time
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    doesn't really apply today.
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    For example,
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    death by parasite is not one
    of the top ways that people die,
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    at least not in the
    technologically-developed world.
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    From antibiotics to surgery,
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    birth control to in vitro fertilization,
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    the filters for reproductive
    success are being relaxed,
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    and under these relaxed conditions,
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    preference and trait
    combinations are free to drift
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    and become more variable.
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    Even as we are profoundly
    effecting our environment,
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    modern medicine and technological
    innovation is profoundly effecting
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    the very essence of what
    it means to look beautiful.
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    The universal nature of beauty is changing
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    even as we're changing the universe.
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    Thank you.
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    (Applause)
Title:
How your brain decides what is beautiful
Speaker:
Anjan Chatterjee
Description:

more » « less
Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDTalks
Duration:
14:47

English subtitles

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