showed the full head, and was unconstrained in terms of facial expression, lighting etc. (see Figure 2). - - - - - - - - - - Figure 2 here - - - - - - - - - - Ten participants took part in an initial stimulus selection phase (all Caucasian, 1 male, mean age = 24 years, SD = 12.6 years, range 17-54 years). They viewed all 600 images in a random order and rated each image for attractiveness on a scale from 1 (very unattractive) to 10 (very attractive). Emphasis was given to rating each specific image, as opposed to the person in the image. Then participants were shown the names of each celebrity and asked to indicate which, if any, they were familiar with. Participants were unfamiliar with the celebrities (mean familiarity < 1.0, SD = 0. 7). Although this sample size was small, inter-rater agreement as measured by Cronbach’s alpha was high (.86). For each celebrity, the 10 images with the highest, and 10 lowest mean attractiveness ratings across participants were selected as the high- and low-attractiveness images for the learning phase of the main experiment. Five of the ten remaining images with middle-mean attractiveness ratings for each celebrity were selected as the images to be rated for attractiveness in the main experiment. Paired samples t-tests on mean attractiveness ratings for the top, middle, and bottom rated images of each celebrity confirmed that the high attractiveness image set (M = 6.4, SD = 1.1) was more attractive than the middle attractiveness images used at test (M = 5.6, SD = 1.1), t(19) = 3.66, < .005, = .82, and that the middle attractiveness images were more p d attractive than the low attractiveness images (M = 4.6, SD = 1.0), t(19) = 16.03,
showed the full head, and was unconstrained in terms of facial expression, lighting etc. (see Figure 2). - - - - - - - - - - Figure 2 here - - - - - - - - - - Ten participants took part in an initial stimulus selection phase (all Caucasian, 1 male, mean age = 24 years, SD = 12.6 years, range 17-54 years). They viewed all 600 images in a random order and rated each image for attractiveness on a scale from 1 (very unattractive) to 10 (very attractive). Emphasis was given to rating each specific image, as opposed to the person in the image. Then participants were shown the names of each celebrity and asked to indicate which, if any, they were familiar with. Participants were unfamiliar with the celebrities (mean familiarity < 1.0, SD = 0. 7). Although this sample size was small, inter-rater agreement as measured by Cronbach’s alpha was high (.86). For each celebrity, the 10 images with the highest, and 10 lowest mean attractiveness ratings across participants were selected as the high- and low-attractiveness images for the learning phase of the main experiment. Five of the ten remaining images with middle-mean attractiveness ratings for each celebrity were selected as the images to be rated for attractiveness in the main experiment. Paired samples t-tests on mean attractiveness ratings for the top, middle, and bottom rated images of each celebrity confirmed that the high attractiveness image set (M = 6.4, SD = 1.1) was more attractive than the middle attractiveness images used at test (M = 5.6, SD = 1.1), t(19) = 3.66, p < .005, d = .82, and that the middle attractiveness images were more attractive than the low attractiveness images (M = 4.6, SD = 1.0), t(19) = 16.03,