The Average Face

As a procrastinator and someone who is making little progress on her thesis, I decided to watch the online videos of Yale's Psychology Open Course. I am not sure why I have foregone the opportunity to take such comparable courses at Princeton, but, clearly, the option to listen to fun lectures without doing actual work is still an appealing one.

So, the episode I picked was on "sex" - which was apparently ranked as the number one favorite activity of all surveyed adults. However, the average time spent on sex is merely 4min per day - quite comparable to the average amount of time Americans spend on filling out tax forms.

Another interesting point made was that the most beautiful and attractive face is the average face - the average face represents genetic predispositions that are free from extreme distortions. That is quite an interesting thought and by just looking at the pictures, I can't deny that these are pretty faces. I am just curious whether there are archives of average Asian faces, rather than just Caucasian faces. I also wonder the different between the "average" face and the "ordinary" face.

Regarding the fact that human males tend to be physically stronger and more aggressive, the well-researched conclusion is that it has to do with the parental investment - that is, the difference of investing in the offsprings between male and female. The larger the difference, the larger the male/female size difference; in species where both sexes have to invest significantly to raise the offspring, the size differences disappears.

OK, I realize that I am rambling now....I'll stop here.