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Lawrence Cai, Rahim Nazerali, Gordon K Lee, Commentary on: The Impact of Mastectomy on Women’s Visual Perception of Breast Aesthetics and Symmetry: A Pilot Eye-Tracking Study, Aesthetic Surgery Journal, Volume 40, Issue 8, August 2020, Pages 862–863, https://doi.org/10.1093/asj/sjz332
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The relationship between a viewer’s gaze and attention has been well demonstrated in the literature, and this close relationship has given rise to a body of research in eye tracking to better understand preferences for aesthetic outcomes. While aesthetic outcomes in plastic and reconstructive surgery are typically evaluated through subjective and rater-dependent criteria, eye-tracking technology now allows for unambiguous objective assessments of aesthetic features that tend to capture a viewer’s attention.1-4 Studies have shown that gaze and attention can be modified based on viewer factors such as amount of surgical training,5,6 personal history of cosmetic surgery,7 and even gender identity. A recent study entitled “The Impact of Mastectomy on Women’s Visual Perception of Breast Aesthetics and Symmetry: A Pilot Eye-Tracking Study” has added to this body of literature by examining the impact of personal history of mastectomy on aesthetic preferences.8
The authors studied aesthetic preferences and gaze patterns of women who have had unilateral mastectomy compared with healthy control women as they viewed a series of standardized breasts in AP and lateral views. Their gaze and attention were measured with an eye-tracking camera, while their subjective ratings for aesthetics and symmetry were rated on a 1-to-10 scale. The authors concluded that patients who have had mastectomy have longer fixation times on the inframammary fold, lower pole, and upper half of the breast compared with healthy controls. Interestingly, the authors note that, although mastectomy status was correlated with different gaze patterns for certain areas of interest (AOIs), these differences were not conserved across all breast types.
