Less is More Regardless of Priming: The Effects of Facial Occlusion and Subliminal Priming on Perceived Attractiveness

Sammanfattning

When visual information is incomplete, the brain naturally compensates for the missing details, possibly leaving aesthetic judgments more open to outside influence. Previous research has established a "less-is-more" effect, in which partially occluded faces are perceived as more attractive than fully visible faces. This study investigated whether subliminal evaluative priming influences attractiveness judgments differently for non-occluded and partially occluded faces. It was predicted that occlusion would increase perceptual ambiguity, allowing priming to exert a greater influence on aesthetic judgments.An online experiment was conducted with 105 Swedish-speaking participants. Participants viewed female faces that were either fully visible or vertically half-occluded. Before each face, a positive trait, negative trait, or neutral word prime was presented subliminally for 67 ms. Participants then rated facial attractiveness.The results revealed no statistically significant interaction between prime type and occlusion, and no main effect of subliminal priming on attractiveness ratings. However, there was strong support for the “less-is-more” effect. Half-occluded faces were rated as more attractive than non-occluded faces.These findings indicate that vertical half-occlusion increases perceived facial attractiveness. However, subliminal evaluative priming did not significantly influence attractiveness judgments under either occluded or non-occluded conditions. This suggests that vertical half-occlusion may not meaningfully increase ambiguity in facial attractiveness, while also reflecting the methodological challenges of detecting subliminal priming effects.