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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Emotion Science
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1421707

The eyes as the exclamation mark of the face: exploring the relationship between eye size, intensity of female facial expressions and attractiveness in a range of emotions

Provisionally accepted
Alanís Esté-Jaloveckas Alanís Esté-Jaloveckas 1Roser Granero Roser Granero 2*
  • 1 Faculty of Psychology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
  • 2 Department of Psychobiology and Methodology, Faculty of Psychology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background-objective: The eyes play an important role in communicating emotions and shape the determination of other facial attributes. Here, we explored the relationship between eye size, perceived intensity and attractiveness of facial expressions.Methods: A sample of N=63 participants (men and women, aged 18 to 35) rated attractiveness and emotional intensity for images displaying emotionally expressive women's faces with digitally manipulated eye size (15% smaller, unchanged, or 15% larger).Results: The analysis of perceived intensity showed an interaction parameter between eye size and gender. Female individuals reported differences when comparing unchanged and larger eyes; male participants showed differences across all eye size comparisons (smaller-unchanged, smaller-larger, unchanged-larger). Regarding perceived attractiveness, faces with smaller eyes registered lower mean scores than both unchanged and larger. The lowest intensity level was associated with neutral faces and the highest with fearful ones. Faces displaying happiness were perceived as the most attractive.Conclusion: Larger eyes seem to make emotions more intense and attractive. We suggest that the more intense phenomenon serves an evolutive purpose, as it might encourage caretaking behavior.

    Keywords: Emotion Intensity, Emotion Perception, Facial Expression, Eye size, Avatar generation

    Received: 22 Apr 2024; Accepted: 24 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Esté-Jaloveckas and Granero. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Roser Granero, Department of Psychobiology and Methodology, Faculty of Psychology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, 08193, Catalonia, Spain

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.