Researchers Bet Eye-Tracking Technology Can Create the Perfect Breast

Forget size or shape when it comes to what's most attractive about breasts. Turns out it's the lower breast area and nipple that gets all the love. 

Aiming to define what "breast attractiveness" really means, Piotr Pietruski, MD, Ph.D., at the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and Prof. W. Orlowski of Memorial Hospital employed eye-tracking technology to determine what area of the breast is viewed the most by both sexes.

The idea was to see if eye-tracking technology can provide better insight into breast aesthetics and symmetry and potentially even create a standard plastic surgeons can go by. 

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Eight different breast types were assessed 

In order to test their theory, the scientists recruited 50 men and 50 women to view images and assess the aesthetics and symmetry of eight types of female breasts. The digital images were displayed on frontal, lateral and oblique projections. The scientists recorded the gaze patterns of the men and women thanks to eye-tracking technology. The data was then analyzed to determine where everyone was looking. 

"Although sex and breast type exerted an effect on attention capturing by some areas of interest, key characteristics of gaze patterns in female and male observers were essentially the same," wrote the researchers in a report highlighting their work. "Irrespective of observers’ sex, the longest fixation duration, and the highest fixation number were recorded for lower breast regions, in particular, for the nipple-areola complex."  The researchers found women looked at the lower area and nipple 58% of the time while it was 57% of the time for men. 

Could this lead to breast surgery standards?

The researchers are hoping their findings will improve the results of reconstructive breast surgeries and plastic surgery. According to the researchers, as it stands there isn't a standardized method of determining what is aesthetically pleasing following surgery since the opinions of the doctor and patient can vary. 

"In our opinion, eye tracking, especially the analysis of attention-capturing time, might be used for the identification of parameters that are critical for the perception of breast attractiveness by various groups of patients or plastic surgeons. These data may be helpful for understanding and subsequent standardization of subjective breast assessment procedure, and perhaps might even facilitate surgeon-patient communication regarding priorities of the operation," the researchers said.  Their work was published in journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.