Does Cumulative Exposure to Overfilled Faces Cause Visual Adaptation?

BACKGROUND: Aesthetic medicine procedures became popular influencing perceptions of beauty. Attractiveness is shaped by factors such as sex, ethnicity, and level of familiarity. Repeated exposure to over-treated faces may change the sense of aesthetic norms potentially influencing the way of performed treatments. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to investigate how exposure to faces that have undergone excessive aesthetic treatments influences facial perception and the evaluation of attractiveness, masculinity, and femininity by medical and nonmedical observers. METHODS: Sixteen pictures (14 modified and 2 unmodified) of female and male models were observed and assessed by 50 volunteers of Polish origin. The study was conducted in 2 phases, both involving eye-tracking and survey evaluations of the same faces. After 4 weeks, same assessment was repeated after exposure to "drift inducers," which were 50 images of individuals who had undergone excessive aesthetic procedures resulting in an artificial appearance. RESULTS: Medical and nonmedical observers showed no differences in time to first fixation or total fixation duration. No difference in gaze patterns has been found between 2 phases of the study. However, female modified lips were evaluated more feminine by physicians. CONCLUSION: Participants with medical background tend to evaluate modified faces more negatively than random observers. However, overfilled lips are the most acceptable facial modifications among them which may result from visual adaptation effect, especially after cumulative exposure.