The Importance of Dentofacial Appearance in Facial Esthetics: A Signal Detection Approach

Partly in response to the negative social consequences of being unattractive, more and more people every year are turning to medical and dental professionals in the United States for alterations of their facial structures. Using standards for normal and abnormal dentofacial appearance developed in orthodontics, three studies were conducted to determine whether dentofacial irregularities (malocclusions) are "detectable" by the general public and cause a devaluation of an individual's perceived facial esthetics. The following major results were obtained: (a) dentofacial appearance is significantly related to the esthetic judgments of 10-13-yearold children as well as 18-23-year-old college students; (b) the condition which orthodontists treat, dentofacial malocclusion, is a significant, detractor from a person's general facial appearance and attractiveness; (c) subjects' esthetic decisions can be correlated to measurable, classifiable differences in facial morphology.