WEBVTT - What Makes Something Beautiful? 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:04.360 Hey, welcome to Sign Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio. I'm 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:08.200 More Him, and today we're diving into the science of beauty. 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:11.600 What makes someone beautiful, what's going on in our brains 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:14.680 when we see a beautiful thing? And is it possible 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.919 to be addicted to beauty? We're going to talk to 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:22.280 a couple of beauty experts, including an evolutionary biologist who 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:26.480 has a brand new theory about what beauty is. So 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:30.360 get ready with me as we explore what makes something beautiful? 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:41.760 I promise the answers our real beauty. Enjoy. Hey everyone, Okay, 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:45.840 here are some interesting facts about beauty. Babies as young 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:49.160 as two months old can tell the difference between someone 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:53.519 who's supposed to be attractive and someone who's not. In 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.960 a famous nineteen eighty seven study, scientists showed a bunch 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:00.640 of babies photos of women that were rated by adults 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:04.120 to be attractive or not, and then they measured which 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:07.880 photos to babies would stare at more. They found that 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:10.440 babies would look at the faces of women who were 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.959 rated to be attractive more than the faces of women 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:18.000 rated to be less attractive. Other studies and beauty have 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:21.080 found that people who are considered beautiful are also more 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.520 likely to be thought of as being smarter, more trustworthy, 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.880 and confident. They get hired more for jobs, and they 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.440 are more likely to get paid more and get more promotions. 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:36.200 Studies have even found that being beautiful or attractive will 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:39.600 make you less likely to be found guilty if you're 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:44.119 ever accused of a crime. Clearly it helps to be beautiful. 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:46.880 So the first thing I did was try to see 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:50.120 how I could be more beautiful, and to do that, 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:55.200 I reached out to a plastic surgeon. Well, thank you, 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:57.200 doctor Sadegi for talking with us. 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:00.640 Well, thank you very much for inviting me to your studio. 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:06.560 I called up doctor Piem Sadegi. Doctor Sadeghi was a 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:09.839 plastic surgeon in his home country of Iran and did 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:13.520 his medical fellowship in plastic surgery at the Cleveland Clinic 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:17.840 in Ohio. Currently, he's the resident in pathology at Eastern 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:21.880 Carolina University. I wanted to ask doctor Sadeghi what he 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:26.680 would do to make me more beautiful, but apparently that's 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:28.000 not how it works. 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:34.840 A doctor's job and responsibility is first to listen to 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:39.280 the patient to know what exactly the definition of beauty 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:42.600 of that patient is and what it means to them. 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:47.519 So that's very important to first understand the beauty standards. 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:51.080 A doctor should spend a great time dealing with the 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.880 patient to be able to understand those standards. 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:00.720 Okay, According to doctor Sadegi, a plastic surgeon's job is 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:05.520 to quote promote a patient beauty standards unquote, which means 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:09.320 it all depends on what the patient considers to be beautiful. 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:13.240 But that's kind of the question I wanted to know now. 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:15.880 The reason I reached out to doctor Sadeghi in particular 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:20.680 is that he's written several academic papers on plastic surgery procedures, 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:24.040 and specifically, he and his colleagues at the Cleveland Clinic 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:28.760 published the paper titled what is Beauty? So I asked 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.320 him to tell us, how do you define beauty? 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:37.360 That's a great question and a simple question, but a 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:42.320 very sophisticated answer. I want to answer your question with this. 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:50.920 Beauty is a multi dimensional concept that has intrigued philosophers, artists, scientists, 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:55.840 and surgeons for centuries. Cannot be fully defined, as Plato 0:03:55.880 --> 0:04:00.600 suggests it, Beauty is not just what appears pleasing. It 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:05.040 often harbors a deeper meaning or essence, inviting us to 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:12.600 contemplate beyond the surface. From both philosophical and neurobiological perspectives, 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:18.760 beauty engages not only our senses, but also our emotions 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:23.800 and memory, evoking a powerful, often mysterious response. So good 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:28.560 luck with that. Yeah, thank you. 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:33.960 We're trying. Yeah, thanks a lot, doctor said, Diggy. It's 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.599 a tricky concept, so I asked him if he could 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:39.960 be more specific. For example, what makes a human phase 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.160 or body appear more beautiful? 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:50.480 So promasurgical and scientific perspective, Symmetry, proportion, and harmony are 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:55.839 key elements of facial and bodily beauty. For the phase, 0:04:55.920 --> 0:05:00.080 features such as balance, third and fifth symmetry, and the 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:04.800 proportions like the golden ratio play important roles. Similarly, for 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:08.400 the body, of characteristics like waste to heat ratios in 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:12.800 women or muscle or symmetry in men are often perceived 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:13.880 as attractive. 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.599 You mentioned proportions. Can you explain what that means? 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:22.479 So the proportions of the elements in the face are 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:26.880 like different in different people and in different cultures. 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.120 Meaning some people might have larger eyes. 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:34.200 Correct, like the distances between the eyes the nose. The 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.720 nose with the lips, the length of their lips, the 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.760 proportion of the upper lip to the lower lip. 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:46.240 Okay, here's our first clue about what makes something beautiful, 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:49.880 and this is the idea that it's related to ratios 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:53.880 or proportions, for example, the ratio between the waist and 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:56.680 the hip in women, or the shoulders and the waist 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:01.240 in men, or for faces, how symmetric you're is, or 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:05.320 what the relative distances are between your eyes and nose 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:09.720 and ears and mouth and cheeks are. But searching the 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:12.640 scientific literature on this, it's hard to find a study 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:16.920 that conclusively proves there's a perfect face or an ideal 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:21.000 set of ratios that people find beautiful. Some studies find 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:25.800 that symmetry is important, some don't. Scientists have tried to 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.040 look for common features and the proportions of faces that 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:31.919 are ranked by test subjects to be beautiful, and it 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.520 seems there are none. It's like, we can all tell 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.760 if a face looks beautiful to us, but trying to 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:43.000 say why that face is beautiful is hard. In one 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:46.520 two thousand and eight study, researchers at Google and tele 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:50.880 Abeef University had to use ninety eight variables about the 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.960 face to get a computer program to predict how human 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:59.279 judges would rate faces to be beautiful. In other words, 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.080 when we're looking at a face and judging whether we 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:05.599 find it handsome, pretty or not, we might be juggling 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:09.440 as many as ninety eight variables in our heads. And 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:13.760 there are several ideas that make this even more complicated. 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:19.960 So there is sort of like a general idealized face 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.960 and body for men and women. But I imagine that 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:27.760 it can vary depending on the person and the culture. 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:32.680 Right correct. For example, in Asia, the curvedness in the 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.520 forehead and also the ratio of forehead between like the 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.520 hairline and the eyebrows is different. 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.040 Oh, how is it different? So in Asia prefer. 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:46.800 What not to be like totally flat, let's say, And 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:50.960 that is more correlated in Asian cultures, So we need 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:53.680 to also consider that. For example, if you want to 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:58.720 practice in Asian countries, you might get more requests from 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.239 the patient who want to do these types of procedures 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:03.440 rather than the others. 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:09.120 Yes, as you can imagine, beauty standards vary with culture. 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:12.720 What's considered beautiful in one culture might be different to 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:17.040 what's considered beautiful in another culture. Beauty standards can also 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:19.760 change over time within a culture. 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:27.000 These standards of beauty have evolved dramatically across time and cultures. 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:32.400 In ancient Greece, proportion and mathematical harmony were central. During 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:38.400 the Renaissance, fuller figures were admired as symbols of fertility 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:45.160 and wealth. Today, especially in Western media, beauty often favors thinness, youth, 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:51.000 and flawlessness, though this is now being increasingly challenged by 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:57.400 more inclusive ideals that celebrate diverse body types, ages, and 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:03.320 skin conditions. Importantly, each culture defines beauty in its own way. 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:07.640 This emphasizes that beauty is not only in the eye 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:12.360 of the beholder, but also shaped by the society and 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:14.160 time in which we leave. 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.320 Okay, how do we make sense of all of this? 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:22.199 It seems that beauty is definitely a thing. Babies can 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:25.760 recognize it, which means there's something inherent in our DNA 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:29.840 about it, and there's also something universal about beauty. No 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:33.360 matter what culture you're in, people talk about beauty, and 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.800 everyone in the world has opinions about whether something or 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:40.920 someone is beautiful or not. At the same time, it's 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:43.960 hard to describe exactly what it is that makes us think, 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:48.720 ah that's beautiful and what's considered beautiful can be different 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.960 depending on the person, their culture, and it can change 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:57.400 over time. So to date, there hasn't really been a 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:05.280 strong scientific theory about what beauty is until now. On 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:09.040 our next segment, we'll talk to an evolutionary biologist who 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:12.360 thinks she has a theory of beauty that covers all 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.120 of these aspects of beauty and how it has played 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:18.800 a role in our evolution. But first, I was curious 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:23.559 about something doctor Siedeggi brought up. You mentioned that the 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:27.200 goal is to promote the patient's quality of life. What 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:27.800 does that mean? 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:31.719 Right? So, when you think of the beauty concept and 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:37.760 when you have a beautiful image of yourself in your subconsciousness, 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:41.240 you think in a positive way. When you think that 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:46.040 you are the most beautiful person, not comparing to anyone, 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:49.800 but just you are beautiful, this is a positive statement 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:55.400 of your mind and this positivity, this mindset, positivity is 0:10:55.520 --> 0:11:00.000 very important in your daily job, in your daily activity 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:03.959 because it gives a positive energy to your mind, so 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:07.040 then you can better perform in your daily basics. 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.640 I say, feeling beautiful is part of how we feel 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:12.880 better about ourselves in general. 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:16.040 That's right. And also it can affect the others. It 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:20.640 can be transmitted to coworkers, to friends, to anyone because 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:24.520 it's a positive energy, and that's why I believe it 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:26.600 can promote the quality of life. 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.320 All Right, we'll dig into the biology of beauty and 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:36.960 how it's affected evolution after the break and stay with us. 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:48.800 We'll be right back. Welcome back. All right. We talked 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:51.760 about how beauty is hard to define and how there 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.640 doesn't seem to be a standard for what beauty is. 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.000 It can vary from person to person and from culture 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:00.960 to culture. But does that mean that it's impossible to 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:05.920 study scientifically? Not necessarily. There's a growing group of scientists 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:09.360 who think they figured out the right way to define 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:13.160 beauty and they think it works for humans and possibly 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:16.719 other animals. To fill us and I talked to one 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.720 of those scientists, doctor Tamra Mendelssohn. 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.320 My name is Tamra Mendelssohn, and I am a professor 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:28.120 of biological sciences at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.400 I study evolutionary biology and specifically animal behavior. 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:34.720 So to start us off, how do scientists define beauty? 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:37.280 You know, it's hard to pin down, so you might 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:40.000 get a different definition from every scientist you ask. 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:42.160 I guess that's kind of the beauty of it. 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:49.520 Sure, I would say only relatively recently have a critical 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:54.040 mass of scientists really started to address the question. Philosophers 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.760 have been asking for centuries, and scientists surely ask here 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:01.160 and there. But I think recently, with the development of 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:06.720 technology in artificial intelligence and in neuroscience, I think we're 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:11.040 better able to ask this question from a scientific perspective. 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:15.120 What do you mean advances in AI and neuroscience, what 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:16.240 has been happening there? 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:20.720 Well, we can use neural networks to visualize activity in 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:24.760 the brain and figure out where in the brain information 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:27.520 is processed, how it's processed. 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.000 And so way to have those scientists been finding in 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:31.160 terms of beauty. 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.640 Well, maybe it makes sense to start with our definition 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:37.440 of beauty and then I can talk about how the 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:42.800 technology relates to and enforces that definition. We just wrote 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:45.559 a paper that just came out in Biological Reviews. This 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:49.920 is with my colleagues Julian Renew from the CNRS in France, 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:53.120 Dave Schukar from the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland, 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:56.520 and Gil Rosenthal from the University of Padava in Italy. 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:01.040 And we are all evolutionary biologists who still the animal communication, 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:04.960 and we define it beauty then as the pleasure or 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:10.439 hedonic impact of fluent information processing, independent of the function 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:13.640 or consummatory reward of that stimulus. 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:20.200 That's a bit of a mouthful the area, right. Okay. 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:22.920 What doctor Mendelssohn is doing here is trying to come 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:26.560 up with a definition of beauty that holds up and 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:30.480 that is useful to scientists. If a definition is vague 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:34.040 or can't be tested, then you can't really do science 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:38.800 with it. Say one more time, what's the definition of beauty. 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:44.840 The pleasure or hedonic impact of fluent information processing, independent 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:48.560 of the function or consummatory reward of that stimulus. 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:51.200 Okay, so I guess we'll start with the first part. 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:53.040 It's a feeling. Beauty is a feeling. 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:56.880 Yes, beauty is a feeling. Absolutely, it's the pleasure or 0:14:57.200 --> 0:14:59.920 what psychologists or neuroscientists called hedonic impact. 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:00.720 What does that mean? 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:04.440 It feels good. So every animal has some kind of 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:10.160 a reward system. Vertebrates especially like us and other primates 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:13.960 and fish, which is what I study, all have What's 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:19.040 called a mesolympic reward system that generates positive feelings. It 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:23.560 seems clear from early studies of beauty and philosophy to 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:28.320 now empirically, it's been shown that beauty is pleasure and 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:32.880 that at least all vertebrates, if not all animals, should 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:35.040 have the capacity to experience that. 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:38.800 To experience pleasure, or to experience the sense of beauty. 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:42.640 Good question. So let's start with pleasure. You have to 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:45.400 have that. If other animals are going to experience beauty, 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:47.520 they must also be able to experience pleasure. That's like 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:48.240 the first piece. 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:50.760 So it seems like you're saying that beauty is an 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.640 experience felt by the person looking at something that's quote 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:59.360 beautiful unquote, meaning that it's not an inherent property of something. 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:01.400 Very much so, yes, it's an interaction. 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:05.320 It's the reaction that person or animal has looking at 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:07.240 this other organism. 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:10.480 Yes, exactly, or listening to a beautiful piece of music 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:11.080 for example. 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:16.840 Oh right, right, all right. The first part of doctor 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:20.520 Mendelssohn's definition of beauty is that it's a feeling felt 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:24.840 by the person looking at or listening to something. It's 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:27.920 not inherent in the thing being observed. In other words, 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:32.000 Beauty really is in the eye or ear of the beholder, 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:36.760 and it's not just any feeling. It's a feeling of pleasure. Now, 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.960 she mentioned the reward system, and that is the circuit 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:43.320 in your brain that gets turned on when you feel good. 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:47.160 If you've heard of dopamine, dopamine is the brain chemical 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:51.200 that gets released that makes this circuit work. It's also 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:55.200 the circuit that gets hijacked when you become addicted. We'll 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:57.760 get to that later, but for now, just remember that 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:02.880 beauty is a feeling. Okay, So it's a feeling and 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:07.119 you said it's a feeling that's related to information processing. 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:10.679 Yes, great, So that's like the next piece, right, and 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:13.679 it's specifically. The word we use in our definition is 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:17.159 fluent information processing. I think most people can wrap their 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:19.760 minds around the concept of fluency, Like when you're fluent 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.399 in a language, it's easy, right, you don't even have 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:24.879 to think about it. It's easy to speak that language 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:30.000 you're fluent. So psychologists use fluency as the basis of beauty. 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:33.960 So beauty is something that is easy, easy to process. 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:41.399 So in neuroesthetics they model beauty as efficient information processing. 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:45.040 It's when something is processed at low cost. 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.240 Oh, I guess this is bringing to mind the phrase 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:51.520 that someone is easy on the eyes? Is that sort 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:52.480 of what this relates to? 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:55.639 Absolutely, one hundred percent, that's exactly it. 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:58.439 Yes, meaning if I look at something and somehow my 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:02.920 brain doesn't have to think much about it, somehow that's beautiful. 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:05.919 Yes, that is the core piece of beauty. And so 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:10.320 we're arguing that not necessarily all efficiently or fluently processed 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:14.480 information is beautiful, but that all beautiful stimuli have this 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.879 in common of being efficiently or fluently processed. 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.200 Okay, this gets a little bit technical, but the main 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.440 point is that, according to doctor Mendelssohn, a key part 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.560 of something being beautiful is that it gives us information, 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:31.320 and that it gives us that information in a way 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:35.520 that's easy for our brain to process. For example, you 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:39.880 might apply that to a face. If face has balanced proportions, 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:43.600 maybe that's easier for our brain to process that it's 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:48.440 a face, and because it's easy, our brain goes, ooh, 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.280 that was easy, and it gives us a little pang 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:54.919 of pleasure. And that experience of pleasure, doctor Mendelssohn and 0:18:54.960 --> 0:19:00.600 her colleagues argue is what beauty is it makes me 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.280 notice that you're using the word efficiency, meaning that it's 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:06.160 not how much information is being given to my brain, 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.000 it's how easily my brain can process it. 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:13.160 That's right. Efficiently processed information isn't necessarily simple. It can 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:17.679 be complex. But if that complex information is processed efficiently 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:20.280 at low cost, then that is pleasurable. 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:22.520 Well, I guess what would be the opposite of that? 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:25.680 Does that mean that's something that's not beautiful or ugly? 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.199 Would you say something that's not beautiful? Would you use 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:28.920 the word ugly? 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:33.320 I think that possibly this concept of ugly might have 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:38.520 more cognitive connotations, so it may remind us of something gross. 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:44.800 So ugly isn't necessarily just inefficiently processed information. Inefficiently processed 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:49.320 information is uncomfortable, for sure, that's been shown. But whether 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:51.199 it's ugly, I think, is another question. 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:57.639 It's true some people find ugly things beautiful. Okay, we 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.400 talked about how beauty is a feeling and how it's 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:05.000 about information being efficient. Now let's talk about what's in 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:09.160 that information. And do you apply this definition of beauty 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.760 that we have so far to just other organisms or 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:14.560 does it apply to all things? 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:15.720 All things? 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:19.239 So then what sort of information am I getting when 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:20.600 I look at a beautiful face? 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:25.280 Well, you're getting a lot of information right at all levels. 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.080 But if we were to judge whether a particular face 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:31.760 is beautiful or not, then by our definition, we would 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:35.680 be asking if that face is more efficiently processed than 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:38.280 other faces. So there are some really basic ways that 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:42.760 information can be efficiently processed, Like symmetry is efficiently processed, 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:45.240 because that's basically you're getting two for one, right, So 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:50.679 that's cheap. Prototypicality when a stimulus is like the best 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:54.160 representative of a category that is efficiently processed. 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:57.760 All right, This is kind of interesting. What doctor Mendelsson 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.359 means here when she talks about prototypicality is basically the 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:04.439 average face in a group of people. And this is 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:06.439 something that was found in some of the studies I 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:08.800 mentioned earlier. If you take a bunch of photos of 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:11.679 people's faces and you add all those faces together to 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:14.440 get kind of the average face of that group, test 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:18.560 subjects will generally think that face is more beautiful than 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:21.919 any one of the other faces in the group, especially 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:25.359 for women's faces. In other words, part of having a 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:29.840 beautiful face is having features that don't stand out very much. 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:33.840 And doctor Mendelssohn argues that face is beautiful because it's 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:37.520 easy for our brains to process since the average is 0:21:37.600 --> 0:21:42.600 kind of what our brains are expecting. So you're saying 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:46.800 that our brains are sort of tuned to recognize some 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:50.560 certain things or like certain things, and so when something 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:54.240 satisfies that tuning in a really easy and efficient way, 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:55.880 then we think, oh, that's beautiful. 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:59.159 Yes, I mean, arguably there's potentially more to it than that, 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:03.440 but that's necessary but potentially insufficient component of beauty. 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:05.760 I see you said that there was another component, which 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:08.399 was its independent what it's independent of. 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:11.879 It's independent according to the definition of the function or 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:16.120 consummatory reward provided by the stimulus. So this goes back 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:21.359 to Kant and his idea of disinterestedness, that beauty. Beauty 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:24.480 is a self sufficient source of pleasure that we don't 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:28.360 necessarily want to own it. That beauty then is liking 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:32.280 without wanting, and the only wanting maybe you feel towards 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:34.840 something that's beautiful is you just want to keep processing it. 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:37.520 You want to keep listening, or you want to keep looking, 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:39.840 but you don't want to have it. You don't want 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:42.639 to eat it, you don't want to mate with it. 0:22:44.160 --> 0:22:46.760 Okay. The last part of this definition of beauty is 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:50.679 that we should like beauty for beauty's sake. In other words, 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:54.359 part of the definition of beauty is that it's addictive. 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:59.000 We want it just for the pleasure of experiencing it. Okay. 0:22:59.119 --> 0:23:01.040 When we come back, we're going to talk about how 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:05.600 beauty could have affected our evolution and whether it's possible 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:09.879 for an animal like a dog or cat or fish 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:15.280 to experience beauty. Stay with us. You're listening to science 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:24.480 stuff and we're back, all right. Cool. So we have 0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:27.040 a definition of beauty, and then how does that apply 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:33.639 to evolution and our biology and why we are all here? Great? 0:23:34.800 --> 0:23:38.399 I love that question. So the way we came at this, 0:23:38.520 --> 0:23:41.160 my colleagues and I, is because we study animal behavior 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:44.439 and we're interested in how animals choose their mates. I 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:48.480 study fish that are stunningly beautiful? Are they beautiful to 0:23:49.000 --> 0:23:52.399 other fish? Are our peacock's beautiful to pea hens? What 0:23:52.560 --> 0:23:57.000 is the experience that those animals have? What are they feeling? 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:00.320 Meaning? Is it a coincidence that we find a peacock 0:24:00.400 --> 0:24:04.280 still beautiful and that it's also something phans find attractive. 0:24:04.440 --> 0:24:06.439 Is there a connection there that's kind of what you're asking. 0:24:06.680 --> 0:24:10.480 Yeah, and then key, if animals experience it as beautiful, 0:24:10.720 --> 0:24:13.479 how does that affect their decision to choose or not 0:24:13.600 --> 0:24:16.920 choose that other individual that has this ornament as a mate? 0:24:16.960 --> 0:24:23.280 Meaning is a peacock's tail beautiful to a phn correct? Okay, 0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:25.879 The last question we're asking here today is what is 0:24:25.920 --> 0:24:29.520 the role of beauty in nature? If animals and our 0:24:29.560 --> 0:24:33.679 ancestors could experience beauty, how did it shape evolution? And 0:24:33.760 --> 0:24:36.639 here doctor Mendelson doesn't have a lot of answers. Like 0:24:36.720 --> 0:24:41.040 I mentioned, this theory is still pretty new, which is exciting. 0:24:41.240 --> 0:24:43.520 If you've never talked to a scientist while they're still 0:24:43.560 --> 0:24:47.440 formulating their hypothesis, it's interesting to hear how they think. 0:24:49.080 --> 0:24:52.520 You know, it seems like we as humans use beauty 0:24:52.800 --> 0:24:56.160 as a factor in our choice of who we want 0:24:56.200 --> 0:24:59.600 to mate with. Is that the same for animals as well? 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:02.280 Here's an analogy. You would need to buy a new car, 0:25:02.400 --> 0:25:05.960 so you go to the car sales place, or you 0:25:06.000 --> 0:25:09.000 want a candy bar. You have a hankering for something sweet, 0:25:09.600 --> 0:25:12.280 and you go to the grocery store and you look 0:25:12.320 --> 0:25:14.800 at all these candy bars. Which candy bar? To what 0:25:14.880 --> 0:25:19.360 extent does the wrapper influence your decision? You already want 0:25:19.359 --> 0:25:22.920 the candy bar, you already want to mate. What role 0:25:23.040 --> 0:25:24.240 does the beauty play. 0:25:24.000 --> 0:25:26.280 In that process? Yes, do we know? No? 0:25:27.440 --> 0:25:28.199 I don't think we do. 0:25:28.720 --> 0:25:30.600 Okay, what are some of your hypotheses? 0:25:30.960 --> 0:25:35.160 So we argue that this beauty, this experience of beauty, 0:25:35.840 --> 0:25:39.800 encourages proximity. So the idea is that an animal already 0:25:39.840 --> 0:25:42.560