Morphological Uniqueness: The Concept and Its Relationship to Indicators of Biological Quality of Human Faces from Equatorial Africa

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11310%2F21%3A10438691" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11310/21:10438691 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=IjGjLgL2~d" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=IjGjLgL2~d</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/sym13122408" target="_blank" >10.3390/sym13122408</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Morphological Uniqueness: The Concept and Its Relationship to Indicators of Biological Quality of Human Faces from Equatorial Africa

Original language description

Facial symmetry, averageness, and the level of sex-typical development of dimorphic traits are traditionally associated with various biological quality indicators and should be, therefore, preferred in mate choice. The aim of this study is to propose a concept of morphological uniqueness and uncover its possible associations to putative phenotypic cues of biological quality. In contrast to typicality expressed by averageness, morphological uniqueness quantifies the degree of possessing characteristics unique to particular groups. I employed a combination of geometric morphometric and Bayesian multiple regression to analyze 300 Cameroonian faces, while an additional 1153 faces from eight distinct populations from across four continents were used as a reference sample of the global population to calculate the morphological uniqueness of Cameroonians. I found that morphological uniqueness is positively associated with a feminine facial shape in women and negatively with morphological masculinity in men. Facial symmetry was positively associated with female faces with greater levels of uniqueness; the result for male faces was inconclusive. The faces of both sexes perceived as more attractive had lower levels of morphological uniqueness. Facial distinctiveness showed no relationship to morphological uniqueness in either sex, which indicates that morphological uniqueness and distinctiveness are two complementary approaches to studying facial typicality. In the conclusion, the evolutionary significance of the proposed concept and its potential applicability is discussed.

Czech name

—

Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10602 - Biology (theoretical, mathematical, thermal, cryobiology, biological rhythm), Evolutionary biology

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA21-10527S" target="_blank" >GA21-10527S: Cross-cultural patterns in facial typicality: disentangling the joint effects of sex-typicality, group-typicality, and psychological stereotypes</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

SYMMETRY-BASEL

ISSN

2073-8994

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

13

Issue of the periodical within the volume

12

Country of publishing house

CH - SWITZERLAND

Number of pages

11

Pages from-to

2408

UT code for WoS article

000737453100001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85121533030