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11:00 - 12:30
Parallel sessions 5
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11:00 - 12:30
Room: HSZ - N9
Chair/s:
Emily Sophie Ufken, Jimpei Hitsuwari
This symposium explores the multifaceted nature of aesthetic experience across neural, cultural, technological, and design domains, offering a comprehensive exploration of how aesthetic judgments emerge from complex interactions between brain, body, culture and context.
Aesthetic perception will be explored across diverse fields of investigation, ranging from man-made artifacts, i.e. art and design domains, to the perception of bodies. The research presented not only enriches theoretical perspectives but also provides empirical insights as well as practical implications. Various experimental methods are used for this purpose. To be specific, the symposium contains mixed-methods research, EEG-fMRI fusion procedures, rating studies as well as cross-cultural studies.
Together, these talks highlight the richness and complexity of aesthetic experience, demonstrating that beauty is not merely a neural response or cultural construct, but a dynamic interplay of perception, meaning, and context. By integrating neuroscience, cultural studies, immersive technology, and empirical design research, this symposium offers a holistic view of how humans engage with beauty in its many forms.
Submission 692
More than Just One Number: The Limitation of Using 2D Width Measures as Indicator for Body Attractiveness
SymposiumTalk-05
Presented by: Emily Ufken
Emily Ufken, Ronald Hübner
University of Konstanz, Germany
The viral A4 waist challenge exemplifies the social media-driven pressure to achieve extreme thinness, promoting a dangerous ideal where the waist must be narrower than a 21 cm sheet of paper. This focus on minimal, two-dimensional (2D) measurements regarding female body attractiveness perception raises critical questions about how perceived body shape differs from physiological reality, particularly regarding the widely-studied Waist-to-Hip Ratio (WHR). In order to investigate this, we conducted an online rating study, using a set of 30 real women’s bodies varying in weight and WHR, thus body shape.

Our results show, that while 2D WHR explains more variance in attractiveness ratings than actual 3D WHR, 2D WHR measurement systematically produces lower WHR values. Moreover, adding shape information that not only account for width, but also for height ratio between waist and hip further increases the prediction of attractiveness ratings.

These findings highlight the limitations of using 2D WHR values and suggest a need to first revise the widely established ideal WHR of 0.7 when considering actual 3D body shape and second, to include more complex shape information into the evaluation of body attractiveness.