Why would you want to eliminate cultural bias, when the point is studying cultural bias?
I can only comment on my own family. My son looks just like me. I look just like my dad. He looks just like his dad and he looked just like his dad. My son is now 11 and you can look at ‘tween’ pictures of all of us and if you got rid of the clothing and sepia toned them all, it would be difficult to tell us apart. My wife won’t let me shave my beard because my father was always clean shaven and when I shave, I could literally be his twin and she finds it extremely creepy. My great was born in 1898, so between 1898 and today, in my family anyway, facial features haven’t changed much if any among first-born sons.
Seems like one might actually be to study this sort of thing using quantifiable data. Facial recognition programs are becoming more sophisticated and have many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of faces in various databases from which to quantify. They could look at some very specific things like chin length, brow height, facial width, nasal height/width, to name just a few characteristics.
You need to find the old gypsy and get him to remove the curse.
So did I!!!
I did and now have a really nice looking pie. I’m leaving it in the fridge right now. What’s the worst that could happen?
Don’t be stingy, share that pie!
ETA: Happy Halloween!!
Of course, he has an explanation in how metal-poisoning makes a face go lop-sided. :dubious: And, of course, a paper in a peer-reviewed journal.
Is there any of this supposed change that can’t be accounted for by the fact that people back in the day often looked far older at the same age than people do today, and that on average, people today are fatter than in the past?
Combine that with different standards of hair and makeup, and I have a suspicion all can be explained without resorting to anything other than superficial differences.
So during lunch at the library I looked at a local high school yearbook from 1898 and compared the headshot student pictures of the senior class to those from a 2009 yearbook. Probably the biggest difference was that there were several dozen double chins and plump cheeks appearing in the 2009 photos and only one student matching that description in the 1898 photos. I was also left with the impression that students looked slightly older in the 1898 photos. I noticed most had dour expressions, so maybe that had something to do with it. Also, all the students were attired more formally - all the male students were wearing shirts with collars, many appeared to be wearing jackets too. Females appeared to be wearing dresses. That too played a role in making them appear older.
Because it may vary over time. And the definition of “attractive” is different in different cultures. There’s too much subjectivity involved to make an objective decision. Are you trying to study whether faces change or whether people’s opinion of them changes? Those are two separate questions and cannot answered if considered together.
I agree, 100 years may be too much time to make comparisons. From the 60s onward may offer more comparable information.
I’m guessing that people look younger today than they did in the past, especially for men. Malnutrition, disease, tobacco, alcohol and industrial chemicals take a toll on people.
Hey! Alcohol is the only vice I have left!
How about 2000 years ago?
The Romans liked to make accurate portrait sculptures, ‘warts and all’. I picked out a few of the best-preserved from a site with a large number of portrait busts.
Some Roman women:
(Except for the hairstyles, they wouldn’t look out of place in a coffee shop in Rome today.)
Some men (a few with prominent Roman noses):
Some youngsters:
Most of the women’s faces in those sculptures have straighter profiles than what I usually see today. Modern women seem to have have faces that project forward more.
But this probably has everything to do with the location and ethnicity of those specific Roman people. Or maybe it was because straight-vertical faces were considered more beautiful at that time.
These have got to be some of the most important factors contributing to a perception of faces changing over the decades. To expand on makeup: The vast majority of Western women only started wearing “visible” (not natural-looking) makeup in the 1920s. If an alien was to compare pictures of silent film starlets to actresses of today, they might wonder why women’s eyes got smaller and less round while their lips expanded. Skillful makeup application doesn’t just enhance existing features, it can diminish or shift those that aren’t considered as attractive by current fashion. And when makeup isn’t enough, there’s always plastic surgery, which also grew into common use in the twentieth century.
I’ve got bad news for you. The weird growth is his head.
I always think that men in old photos seem to have unnaturally smooth skin (assuming they are clean-shaven). But that might just be a resolution issue.
Examples:
You can easily see the under-the-eyes wrinkles (I know that’s not the right word but I hope you understand what I mean), specially in the middle photo. It’s possible that some of them are simply younger than you think (I’d peg several of those guys as low to mid twenties).
There may also be other factors, such as no medicalized steroids in the food and, for those in rural areas, clean air.
All of the following have an influence on physical appearance:
Hairstyles are different than 100 years ago.
Fashions are different.
Weight gain is different.
Fitness and health is different.
Cross-pollination of races are different*.
Also:
Teens aren’t going to war and prematurely ageing.
Smoking has reduced, especially exposure to second-hand smoke.
Diets have improved; Not just reduced fat content, but quality of ingredients and awareness of caloric intake.
Skin care, hair health, and dental hygiene has been a quiet revolution.
Lives last averagely longer.
However:
Stress has increased.
Drug abuse is chronic.
It all makes a difference.
*marginally