Author's Name:	Slavka Demuthova
Subject Area:	Social Science and Humanities
Subject	Psychology
Section	Research Paper

face perception and assessment, attractiveness, intelligence, sex differences

The perception of human face attractiveness and intelligence has been studied from various points of view. This study concentrates on questions whether we take into account the intelligence of the face when we assess its attractiveness and whether this assessment is different according to sex of the human face as well as the sex of the observer. It also analyses the ability to perceive and asses the intelligence from the features of the human face and sex differences in this task. Subjects were 416 participants (285 females) with the mean age 21,47 years (St.dev.=6,5) all European race. They assessed three female and three male faces according to their attractiveness and intelligence, while these three faces represented three different levels (low, middle and high) of intelligence manifesting in face features. Result show that the most intelligent female face is universally (in men and women, too) considered as the prettiest: Also, men and women are similarly right when assigning the most intelligent female face. Differences were found in male face assessment; both – men and women - did not clearly differ between middle and high intelligent male face in attractiveness nor in the intelligence assessment task. Results are discussed within the evolutionary explanations of the intelligence as a marker for “good gens” representing resourcefulness of woman, while for men also the other components of this characteristic (e.g. social status, dominance etc.) may play bigger role.