What factors make you more or less attractive?

According to a report featured in ‘Frontiers in Psychology’, research focusing on the science of attractiveness tends to look primarily at visual attraction (face or body attraction, for example) as opposed to the other sensory options.

Though visual attraction plays an important role in attractiveness, Agata Groyecka, lead author of a review on attractiveness, and researcher at the University of Wroclaw in Poland said, the role of other senses should not be neglected.

Groyecka’s research involved the analysis of 73 studies published over the last three decades, looking at how the voice and smell may impact attractiveness.

Whether you’re put off by an unpleasant body odor or an annoying voice, it’s easy to understand how the nose and ears are just as important as the eyes in noticing how attractive someone is.

"Perceiving others through the three channels [eyes, ears, and nose] gives a more reliable and wider variety of information about these people," said Groyecka

Amongst the analyses there were some perhaps logical findings, including people being able to guess gender and age on voice alone. However, it was also found that people were skilled at detecting an unexpected range of characteristics from a voice, including the dominance, cooperativeness, emotional state, and even the body size of the speaker.

Other studies found that individuals were able to identify similar information solely based on smell. Overall the review highlighted that it is really important to consider the evaluation of attractiveness as a multisensory equation. 

Groyecka concluded: “I hope this review will inspire researchers to continue exploring the role of sound and smell in social relationships.”