ArticleSocial cognitive and affective neuroscience2016
Beauty is in the belief of the beholder: cognitive influences on the neural response to facial attractiveness.
Article in Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neuroelectric Correlates of Human Sexuality: A Review and Meta-Analysis.Archives of sexual behavior · 2023Pooled it
- Beauty in the eye of the beholder: Attention to attractive faces dissociates across covert and overt measures.Attention, perception & psychophysics · 2025Article
- How Personality Traits Affect the Perception of Facial and Vocal Attractiveness.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- A beautiful face is good when we're judged by others, a moral character is better.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Equation for Attractiveness: Integrating Multidimensional Factors Through Computational Neuroaesthetics.Aesthetic plastic surgery · 2025Article
- Facial attractiveness in the eyes of men with high arousal.Brain and behavior · 2023Article
- Bridging the Gap Between Believing and Memory Functions.Europe's journal of psychology · 2023Article
- Good conduct makes your face attractive: The effect of personality perception on facial attractiveness judgments.PloS one · 2023Article
- Comparisons make faces more attractive: An ERP study.Brain and behavior · 2022Article
- Article
- Confidence Modulates the Conformity Behavior of the Investors and Neural Responses of Social Influence in Crowdfunding.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2021Article
- Roles of P300 and Late Positive Potential in Initial Romantic Attraction.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021Article
- Effects of Baby Schema and Mere Exposure on Explicit and Implicit Face Processing.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Article
- Neural time course and brain sources of facial attractiveness vs. trustworthiness judgment.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2018Article
- Neural Process of the Preference Cross-category Transfer Effect: Evidence from an Event-related Potential Study.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- In God we trust? Neural measures reveal lower social conformity among non-religious individuals.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2017Article
- Article
- Prediction of Soft-Tissue Changes Following Single and Bi-Jaw Surgery: An Evaluative Study.Annals of maxillofacial surgeryArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Judgments of facial attractiveness are central to decision-making in various domains, but little is known about the extent to which they are malleable. In this study, we used EEG/ERP methods to examine two novel influences on neural and subjective responses to facial attractiveness: an observer's expectation and repetition. In each trial of our task, participants viewed either an ordinary or attractive face. To alter expectations, the faces were preceded by a peer-rating that ostensibly reflected the overall attractiveness value assigned to that face by other individuals. To examine the impact of repetition, trials were presented twice throughout the experimental session. Results showed that participants' expectations about a person's attractiveness level powerfully altered both the neural response (i.e. the late positive potential; LPP) and self-reported attractiveness ratings. Intriguingly, repetition enhanced both the LPP and self-reported attractiveness as well. Exploratory analyses further suggested that both observer expectation and repetition modulated early neural responses (i.e. the early posterior negativity; EPN) elicited by facial attractiveness. Collectively, these results highlight novel influences on a core social judgment that underlies individuals' affective lives.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.