AIM: Quantification of visual attention directed towards cleft stigmata and its impact on the perception of selected personality traits. METHODS: Forty observers were divided into two groups and their visual scan paths were recorded. Both groups observed a series of photographs displaying full frontal views of the faces of 18 adult @entity1 with clefts, nine with residual cleft stigmata and nine with digitally-corrected stigmata (each @entity1 only appeared once per series). @entity1 that appeared with residual stigmata in one series appeared digitally corrected in the other series and vice versa. Visual fixation times on the upper lip and nose were compared between the original and corrected photographs. Observers subsequently rated personality traits as perceived using visual analogue scales and the same photographs that they had observed in the series. RESULTS: In faces depicting cleft stigmata observers spent more time looking at the oronasal region of interest, followed by the eyes (39.6%; SD 5.0 and 35.1%; SD 3.6, respectively, p  =  0.0198). Observers spent more time looking at the @entity3384 compared with the corrected lip (21.2%; SD 4.0 and 16.7%; SD 5.0, respectively, p  =  0.006). The differences between questionnaire scores for faces with cleft stigmata compared with faces with corrected stigmata for withdrawn-sociable, discontent-content, lazy-assiduous, unimaginative-creative, unlikeable-likeable, and the sum of individual personality traits were not significant. CONCLUSION: According to these findings, @entity3384 and @entity2419 have an attention-drawing potential with the @entity3384 being the major attention drawing factor. These data do not provide supportive evidence for the notion reported in literature that @entity1 with clefts are perceived as having negative personality traits.

Eye tracker based study: Perception of faces with a XXXX and nose deformity.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['Patients', 'patients', 'patient'] @entity2419 :: ('MESH:D002972', 'Disease') :: ['cleft nose'] @entity3384 :: ('MESH:D002971', 'Disease') :: ['cleft lip']
@entity3384 :: (MESH:D002971,Disease) :: ['cleft lip']
