Beauty and Beer

 

            

 

In learning the craft of psychophysics, there is nothing as effective as doing. To study the perception of attractiveness, a variety of 8 ½ by 11” head shots were collected (out of magazines since this was before the Internet). Early on, a number of preconceptions fell by the wayside. Attractiveness and unattractiveness were found not to be extensions along the same perceptual dimensions. They were distinct perceptual entities. In addition, beauty turned out to be two dimensional. When the scaled images were laid out according to the results, one dimension captured the property of sexual attractiveness while the second dimension was more aligned with what might be called athleticism.

 

When it came to rating beer, there were also a few interesting interactions. It became clear that taste wasn’t the only perceptual influence. Associated aromatic factors had a strong effect, and more interestingly, the contributions from multiple samples interacted and brought out properties that were not apparent in isolation. A couple of commercially popular beers acquired a skunkiness that was not due to their own chemistry. As also might have been appreciated with a little more forethought, the attempt to contrast the rating data with that obtained using paired comparisons of beer shots didn’t work out as well as might have been hoped.