Oxygenated-Blood Colour Change Thresholds for Perceived Facial Redness, Health, and Attractiveness

Blood oxygenation level is associated with cardiovascular fitness, and raising oxygenated blood colouration in human faces increases perceived health. The current study used a two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) psychophysics design to quantify the oxygenated blood colour (redness) change threshold required to affect perception of facial colour, health and attractiveness. Detection thresholds for colour judgments were lower than those for health and attractiveness, which did not differ. The results suggest redness preferences do not reflect a sensory bias, rather preferences may be based on accurate indications of health status. Furthermore, results suggest perceived health and attractiveness may be perceptually equivalent when they are assessed based on facial redness. Appearance-based motivation for lifestyle change can be effective; thus future studies could assess the degree to which cardiovascular fitness increases face redness and could quantify changes in aerobic exercise needed to increase facial attractiveness.

• Publication year

  2011

• Venue

  PLoS ONE

• Publication date

  2011-03-23

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0017859PMID 21448270PMCID 3063159
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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