Searching for Signs of Plastic Surgery on the Face: Tracking the Eyes of Where Observers Look.

Background

Objective measurement of where observers direct their attention to faces when searching for signs of facial plastic surgery (FPS) is currently lacking.

Objective

To compare where laypersons direct their attention on facial photographs using eye-tracking software when they are asked to (1) search for signs of aesthetic facial surgery or (2) allowed to gaze without direction (free-gaze).

Methods

Naïve observers either free-gazed or examined faces for signs of FPS (FPS-prompted) for 10 s per face while their gaze was recorded by an eye-tracking system. Faces had no known history or signs/stigmata of FPS and were selected from the FACES and CFD databases with a diverse demographic distribution. Gaze times in nine facial subregions were analyzed using mixed-effects linear regression.

Results

In FPS-prompted observers (n = 50, mean age 32.7 ± 11.3 years, 23/50 (46%) female), the nose, mouth, cheeks, and forehead experienced the most substantial increases (p < 0.001) and a high percentage of overall gaze time (17.9%, 12.5%, 12.0%, 9.6%, respectively) compared to free-gazing observers [n = 57, 35.5 ± 13.9 years, 31/57 (54%) female].

Conclusions

Observers direct attention differently on a face when searching for signs of plastic surgery with increased attention on the nose, mouth, cheeks, and forehead.