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Science - Reuters

Scientists Show Babies Have Innate Sense of Beauty

Sun Sep 5, 7:08 PM ET

EXETER, England (Reuters) - Beauty may not be just in the eye of the beholder after all because a sense of visual attraction is hardwired in the brain at birth, a British scientist said on Monday.

Psychologist Alan Slater of the University of Exeter in south-western England told a British science conference that babies can recognize their mother from as little as 15 hours after birth and also show a preference for looking at photographs of physically attractive people.

"Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder but in the brain of the newborn infant," he told the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

In a series of experiments, he and his colleagues have shown that although babies enter the world visually naive, all their sensory system are functioning.

Infants show several spontaneous visual preferences. They like watching moving rather than stationary objects, prefer to look at three-dimensional stimuli and find faces fascinating.

When given a choice of two facial photographs to look at, babies usually prefer and spend more time gazing at the person who is better-looking.

"Infants prefer to look at the more attractive of two faces," said Slater.

Although a perception of attractiveness may be evident at birth, Slater said experience also plays a role in a person's conception of beauty