Assessing abdominoplasty aesthetics in women with eye-tracking technology—do patients see things differently?

A Narrative Review of Eye-Tracking (ET) Assessment of Esthetic Endpoints in Plastic, Reconstructive, and Craniofacial Surgery

“…29,30 Eye-tracking application to breast surgery was reported in only 4 publications. [31][32][33][34] It was reported in 1 study concerning gaze pattern of observers with or without a history of plastic surgery looking at abdominoplasty images 35 and in 2 reports about assessment of the most esthetically pleasing umbilicus position with ET. 36,37 Three additional reports were about sex affirming surgery.…”

“…Eye tracking may exhibit also discriminatory ability between observers in certain situations, suggesting that gaze differences may be related to individual preferences 38 . In a study about abdominoplasty esthetic outcome, looking at preoperative and postoperative images, women with previous cosmetic surgery were more favorable, faster, and focused viewers, fixating more on relevant anatomy features and spending significantly less time evaluating images than women without previous cosmetic surgery 35 . Moreover, ET research has shown that observers with more experience in art and in cosmetic surgery fixate on different areas of the face than laypersons and that sequence of facial feature recognition is influenced by the esthetic liking of the observer, thus biases within an observer population could seriously affect the objectivity of assessment 25,40,46,54 .…”