Grey computer bodies stripped of hair, clothes or any other cultural or other identifiers.
Credit: bodyLab
SYDNEY: Australian scientists are asking people to rate different body shapes in an online survey in the hope of understanding how the rules of attraction have helped shape the human race.
The online study has drawn almost 50,000 participants worldwide in its first four months and is already offering some key insights into what, in particular, makes an attractive woman.
"We've had a few androgynous-type shapes and they haven't lasted very long," lead researcher Rob Brooks told AFP. "You need to have a certain amount of curvaceousness, a certain amount of body fat."
It's all about proportion
The extremely overweight and underweight were consistently rejected, he said, adding that proportion was everything.
"You can't simply say a narrow waist is more attractive, or a large bust or large biceps are more attractive, it really depends whether those things fit with the rest of the structure of the body," he said.
The Sydney-based study asks participants to rate the attractiveness of 120 bodies ranging from very thin to very overweight, and the most popular half are then 'mated' using computer simulations to tweak their appearance.
"What the people are doing by rating the bodies is they are acting the equivalent to natural selection," said Brooks.
Heterosexual men more eager to rate
Heterosexual men have most enthusiastically embraced the survey, meaning the research was now up to its fourth generation of women, and only second of men.
The grey computer bodies have been stripped of hair, clothes or any other cultural or other identifiers.
