Averageness Is Not Enough: Dissociable Perceptual Codes for Body Attractiveness Versus Typicality

Across two studies, American and Chinese participants (N = 425) judged computer-generated 3D female and male bodies for typicality and attractiveness. In Study 1, the two judgments were positively correlated but showed different computational signatures: Typicality was predicted by proximity to the population prototype, whereas attractiveness was better predicted by variation along specific body shape dimensions, such as curvature and muscularity.

Consistent with this, the bodies judged most attractive were morphologically distinctdissociable from those judged most typical. A preregistered Study 2 directly tested this distinctiondissociation using morph continua ranging from caricatured super-typical to super-attractive bodies. Across both cultures, bodies closer to the attractive endpoint were rated as more attractive, whereas typicality ratings were lower, or comparable in magnitudemoving toward the attractive endpoint increased attractiveness while reducing typicality or leaving it unchanged.