We Remember Unnattracitve Faces Better

We tend to remember unattractive faces more than attractive ones, according to psychologists at the University of Jena. In the science magazine Neuropsychologia, the psychologists write that "attractive faces without particularly remarkable features leave much less distinctive impressions on our memory," according to a press release announcing the findings.

The "great eyes, full lips and harmonious features" of Angelina Jolie make her regarded as a very attractive person, according to the researchers. Holger Wiese of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany) stated, "Her features combine many factors which contribute to the attractiveness of a face."

In his research, he mostly deals with the perception of faces. "On the one hand we find very symmetrical and rather average faces appealing," he explained. "On the other hand, people who are perceived as being particularly attractive stand out by additional traits, which distinguish them from the average." Besides being attractive, Jolie's big eyes and lips ensure that she is easy to recognize. "We tend to remember those faces well," according to Wiese.

But facial recognition isn't the case for all attractive people, as Wiese and his colleagues, Carolin Altmann and Stefan Schweinberger write in their new study.

"We could show that the test subjects were more likely to remember unattractive faces than attractive ones, when the latter didn't have any particularly noticeable traits," Wiese said.

For the study, the psychologists showed photos of faces to test subjects. Half of the faces were considered attractive and the other half were considered unattractive, but all were similarly distinctive looking. The test subjects were shown the photos for a few seconds and asked to memorize them. Later testing showed them another series of photographs of faces, including some they were shown previously, and asked if they recognized any of the faces.

The scientists were surprised by the results, "Until now we assumed that it was generally easier to memorize faces, which are being perceived as attractive - just because we prefer looking at beautiful faces", according to Wiese.

But the results showed that such a correlation is not easily sustained. Wiese and his colleagues assumed recognition of attractive faces is distorted by emotion, exacerbating recognition at a later time. This is suggested by evidence from the EEG-recordings during the memory tests.

Interestingly, the researchers also discovered more false positives for attractive face recognition. People were more likely to answer yes if the face was attractive. "We obviously tend to believe that we recognize a face just because we find it attractive," Wiese supposed.