Grow taller visually
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Attract attention to the top of your body

Attract attention to the top of your body

Body evaluation can change due to the observer’s attention shift.

When an object attracts our attention, the brain increases its contrast and brightness,1 causing us to observe it more carefully and underestimate the others.

Attention modulates brightness
Picture. Attention to one or another disk leads to a perceived darkening of that disk.

Studies show that when looking at a person, our attention is often directed towards specific areas, such as the stomach.2 For instance, men tend to focus slightly higher, on the chest area, while women tend to focus on the waist.

Eye movement while assessing attractiveness
Picture. Eye movement while assessing a person's body. The left picture represents the gaze of women, while the right picture represents the gaze of men. Red dots indicate the most attractive areas.

Try to direct the observer’s attention to your neck and head. There is a peculiarity that the line of vision is attracted to the noticeable part. For example, you can achieve this by selecting accessories such as glasses, brooches, and also a hairstyle. A more saturated color is better, for example, red or any reflective color.3 Black outfits are also attracting more attention to the upper body.4

Direct the viewer's attention to the upper part of the body
Picture. Flower on head directs viewer's gaze upward, diverting attention from hip width.

Remove accentuating details below the waist.

You will have a higher eye line, and the brain may mistake it for a taller height.5

You can also redirect attention from an undesirable body part to a more favorable one. In one experiment, women with facial paralysis improved facial symmetry with the help of hairstyles and makeup.6

Corrective makeup for facial asymmetry - before and after
Picture. Corrective makeup - before and after. Directing attention to the healthy side of the face visually restores symmetry.

  1. Peter U. Tse, Voluntary attention modulates the brightness of overlapping transparent surfaces, Vision Research, Volume 45, Issue 9, 2005, Pages 1095-1098, ISSN 0042-6989, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2004.11.001 ↩

  2. Piers L. Cornelissen, Peter J.B. Hancock, Vesa Kiviniemi, Hannah R. George, Martin J. Tovée, Patterns of eye movements when male and female observers judge female attractiveness, body fat and waist-to-hip ratio, Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 30, Issue 6, 2009, Pages 417-428, ISSN 1090-5138, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.04.003 ↩

  3. Henrik Hagtvedt , S Adam Brasel, Color Saturation Increases Perceived Product Size, Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 44, Issue 2, August 2017, Pages 396–413, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucx039 ↩

  4. Nimreth Sidhu;Chloe Qualter;Emily Higgs;Kun Guo; (2021). What colour should I wear? How clothing colour affects women’s judgement of other women’s body attractiveness and body size . Acta Psychologica, (), –. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2021.103338 ↩

  5. 森川 和則, 顔と身体に関連する形状と大きさの錯視研究の新展開, 心理学評論, 2012, 55 巻, 3 号, p. 348-361, 公開日 2018/08/18, Online ISSN 2433-4650, Print ISSN 0386-1058, https://doi.org/10.24602/sjpr.55.3_348 ↩

  6. Kanzaki J, Ohshiro K, Abe T. Effect of Corrective Make-Up Training on Patients with Facial Nerve Paralysis. Ear, Nose & Throat Journal. 1998;77(4):270-274. https://doi.org/10.1177/014556139807700408 ↩

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