Author Interviews, Ophthalmology, PLoS, Social Issues / 12.09.2019
Why Do We Center Our Selfies On Our Left Eye?
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_51280" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Prof. Tyler[/caption]
Christopher W. Tyler D.Sc., PhD
Division of Optometry and Vision Sciences
School of Health Sciences
City University of London
London, United Kingdom
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The idea came from my previous investigation of compositional regulates in paintings, which showed that there is a sense of balance between symmetry and asymmetry in a composition, such that the asymmetry composition tends to appear more dynamic and interesting, but it needs to be anchored around a symmetric point for a comfortable sense of stability. That point in adult portraits tends to be the dominant eye, placed close to the centre line, but above the centre of the painting as a whole.
Selfies are a fascinating art form and the lead author has published several papers on this topic from a cognitive neuroscience perspective. One fascinating feature of selfies is that they represent pseudo-artistic productions by individuals that do not generally have academic artistic training, making it interesting to compare them to self-portraits by real artists. If you then see the same phenomena, it is likely that these are rooted in our deep nature rather than on training and cultural conventions.
Prof. Tyler[/caption]
Christopher W. Tyler D.Sc., PhD
Division of Optometry and Vision Sciences
School of Health Sciences
City University of London
London, United Kingdom
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: The idea came from my previous investigation of compositional regulates in paintings, which showed that there is a sense of balance between symmetry and asymmetry in a composition, such that the asymmetry composition tends to appear more dynamic and interesting, but it needs to be anchored around a symmetric point for a comfortable sense of stability. That point in adult portraits tends to be the dominant eye, placed close to the centre line, but above the centre of the painting as a whole.
Selfies are a fascinating art form and the lead author has published several papers on this topic from a cognitive neuroscience perspective. One fascinating feature of selfies is that they represent pseudo-artistic productions by individuals that do not generally have academic artistic training, making it interesting to compare them to self-portraits by real artists. If you then see the same phenomena, it is likely that these are rooted in our deep nature rather than on training and cultural conventions.