Comment on: Pregnant Women's Preferences for Men's Faces Differ Significantly from Nonpregnant Women.

How humans react to another human’s face has been a subject of great interest since antiquity. Who can forget the legion of Helen of Troy who had “The face that launched a thousand ships”? Although we have no verified portrait of Helen’s face, another face that has attracted human attention since the 1500s and is often considered the best known and most visited face in the world is da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Drawing us to her appears to emanate from her enigmatic expression and a piercing stare. Our interest in, reactions to, and strong attraction to various faces continue to fascinate us, not only in our day-to-day living, but also our interest extends to how artists depict the human face. When looking at Andy Warhol’s depiction of the silk-screened face of Marilyn Monroe, many of us are amazed and positively drawn to the exaggerated colors that depict a modern day “Helen” vs. the repulsion felt on Edvard Munch’s depiction of the agonized expression on the man’s face in his globally famous painting, The Scream. But it is not only artists who are interested in the face and how their audience reacts to them, but scientists as well. Several studies, such as reported by Little and Jones, suggest that humans prefer symmetric faces to asymmetric ones, either because we equate symmetry with health or because symmetry is more easily visually processed by humans [1]. In addition to symmetry, other important traits include averageness (how close the face resembles others in that population), secondary sexual characteristics, skin health and color, facial clues (attractiveness), and other traits such as age, weight, and external alterations such as makeup and hair style [2]. A recent study suggests that economics of the time also are predictive to our reaction to the face. Pettijohn and colleagues looked at facial features of popular U.S. country music singers over time [3]. They found that during times of relative “famine,” artists with more mature facial features were popular whereas in time of relative “feast,” baby-faced artists with larger eyes and a smaller chin were popular. Adding important data to this literature on the face is the current article on how pregnant women and the hormonal shifts that occur during gestation influence facial choice. The conclusions of this research are as expected. Although there is an evolutionary imperative for reproduction aged women who are seeking a male partner to be more attracted to those who have a more masculine face thus increasing their relative risk of conception, this need is nonexistent in the already pregnant woman. Once pregnant, a woman’s reproductive need for coital exchange disappears as successful conception has already occurred. What would be an interesting follow-up to this study is one in which the authors longitudinally follow these women after giving birth and document when their preference for a more masculine face resurfaces. It should most probably coincide with the cessation of lactation in those women who are nursing their infants. However, it would be fascinating to scientifically document this.