Evolution and Human Behavior 20: 295–307 (1999)  1999 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010 1090-5138/99/$–see front matter PII S1090-5138(99)00014-8 Symmetry and Human Facial Attractiveness David I. Perrett, D. Michael Burt, Ian S. Penton-Voak, Kieran J. Lee, Duncan A. Rowland, and Rachel Edwards Perception Laboratory, School of Psychology, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom Symmetry may act as a marker of phenotypic and genetic quality and is preferred dur- ing mate selection in a variety of species. Measures of human body symmetry correlate with attractiveness, but studies manipulating human face images report a preference for asymmetry. These results may reflect unnatural feature shapes and changes in skin tex- tures introduced by image processing. When the shape of facial features is varied (with skin textures held constant), increasing symmetry of face shape increases ratings of at- tractiveness for both male and female faces. These findings imply facial symmetry may have a positive impact on mate selection in humans. © 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. KEY WORDS: Face; Human; Asymmetry; Fluctuating. uring growth, challenges to health increase fluctuating asymmetry [individual variation between left and right in traits that tend to be symmetric at the population level (Ludvig 1932; Van Valen 1962)]. Symmetry may therefore indicate phenotypic quality and how well an individual’s genome can resist disease and maintain normal development in the face of environmental perturbation (Møller 1990; Parsons 1992). Developmental stabil- ity may be heritable (Møller and Thornhill 1997), which would engender selection for preferences for mates with low fluctuating asymmetry. Female preference for symmetry of male characteristics has been demonstrated in both insects (Radesäater and Halldórsdóttir 1993) and birds (Møller 1992; Swaddle and Cuthill 1994; for a meta-analysis of the role of symmetry in sexual selection see Møller and Thornhill 1998). Sexually selected characteristics exhibit increased levels of fluctuating asym- metry in nonhuman primate species (Manning and Chamberlain 1993). D Received February 19, 1999; revised June 25, 1999. Address correspondence and reprint requests to: David Perrett, School of Psychology, University of St. Andrews, South Street, St. Andrews, Fife KY16 9JU, Scotland, U.K. E-mail: dp@st-and.ac.uk