Research interests
As part of a PhD I am currently researching the physical features which make a woman attractive, and what purpose they serve. I am exploring the evolutionary argument that attractiveness is a proxy for the underlying health and fertility of a woman by investigating methods which can give insight into actual health and fertility. Once a measure of health and fertility is achieved then the validity of the argument that attractiveness provides some form of adaptive benefit can be determined. This research is funded by the Medical Research Council.
Current research
I am not not currently running any studies. Please visit the links below to look at some other studies that may be of interest.
Take part in other research
http://www.psychresearch.org.uk/
http://psych.hanover.edu/research/exponnet.html
Qualifications
PhD - The Visual Cues to Female Physical Attractiveness, Health and Fertility (Oct 2003 - Oct 2006), University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Supervisors: Dr. Daniel Nettle, Dr. Martin Tovee and Dr. Piers Cornelissen.
Funded by the Medical Research Council
MPhil - Principal Component Analysis of Body Shape Features and Their Role in Predicting Judgements of Attractiveness (Sept 2002 - Nov 2004), University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Supervisors: Dr. Martin Tovee and Dr. Piers Cornelissen.
BSc (Hons) Psychology - 2.1 (Sept 1999 - June 2002), University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
Publications
Papers
Smith, K.L., Tovée, M.J. & Cornelissen, P.L. (in press) Colour 3D Bodies and Judgements of Attractiveness.
Smith, K.L., Tovée, M.J., Hancock, P., Cox, M.A.A. & Cornelissen, P.L. (in press) An analysis of body shape preference based on image statistics.
Talks
Smith, K.L., Cornelissen, P.L. & Tovée, M.J. (2004) Is attractiveness really a measure of underlying health? 16th HBES conference, Berlin, Germany.Cornelissen, P.L., Smith, K.L., Hancock, P. & Tovée, M.J. (2004) An atheoretical analysis of female physical attractiveness does 50% better than theory. 16th HBES conference, Berlin, Germany.
Posters
Bateson, M., Sainthouse, P., Smith, K.L., Hancock, P., & Tovée, M.J. (2004) Contextual Effects in Judgements of Attractiveness. 16th HBES conference, Berlin, Germany.
Smith, K. (2006) What purpose does attractiveness serve? 2nd Yorkshire and North East Hub Poster Competition and Networking Event, Northumbria University, UK.
Contact
Please forward any questions you have regarding my research to k.l.smith@ncl.ac.uk