Obviously the mirror looks pretty good, but the photo of yourself always looks strange, and even in some cases will feel that their photos are ugly, such experience, many people have experienced to varying degrees, I believe that you are reading this article is no exception. So why do you always look better in the mirror than you do in the photos? Here we will use science to tell you the truth.
The vast majority of people are used to looking at themselves in the mirror, and if you are too, then your brain has already gotten used to the way you look in the mirror and thinks it is the “most natural”.
When you look at a picture of yourself, your brain will naturally compare it with how you look in the mirror, and for various reasons, the way you look in the picture will be different from the way you look in the mirror, so your brain will think you look “unnatural” in the picture, and if this difference reaches a certain level, your brain will even think you look “unnatural” in the picture. If this difference reaches a certain level, your brain will even think that you are ugly in the photo. What exactly causes this difference?
The mirror upside down
If you raise your right hand in front of the mirror, you will see that you raise your left hand in the mirror, thus, your appearance in the mirror is reversed. Generally speaking, the human face is not strictly symmetrical from left to right, so when you see a picture of yourself that is not upside down, your brain will be keenly aware of the difference.
Lens distortion
The picture above shows the effect of shooting at different focal lengths, you can see that there is a significant difference, why is this? Simply put, this is because the camera lens is not a flat mirror like a mirror, but a combination of convex and concave lens, the overall effect of the composite is convex lens, and because the convex lens has the effect of pooling light, so according to the focal length of the lens, the corresponding differences in the photos taken will also appear.
Details
When taking a picture, the camera will objectively capture all the tones and shadows that you don’t notice when you’re looking in the mirror, because your powerful brain has already silently processed everything.
It is worth mentioning that studies have shown that when humans use the mirror to observe themselves, their attention is usually focused on specific parts of their face, such as the eyes, nose, mouth, etc., but when looking at their own photos, but tend to look at the whole to observe.
Pressure when taking photos
Generally speaking, everyone wants their photos to look good, so when taking photos, we often feel the pressure, which makes us usually “expressions, slightly exaggerated”, obviously, in this case the facial expression, it is likely not as natural as usual.
Angle adjustment
When you look in the mirror, you usually subconsciously adjust the angle so that you look more natural (for your brain), while when someone else is taking a picture of you, you can only see it after the picture is taken.
In addition to the above, there are also some psychological phenomena that contribute to our belief that we always look better in the mirror than we do in the photo, as we continue to see.
“The frozen face effect”
When we are watching a video of someone, if we press the pause button, then we will find that the person in the pause screen often does not look as good as in the normal playback of the video, this psychological phenomenon is known as the “frozen face effect”. Scientists speculate that this is because the human brain’s facial recognition neural mechanism is better at recognizing dynamic faces, so in our subconscious, dynamic faces are easier to recognize and more attractive.
“Exposure effect”
The “exposure effect” is also known as the “look more effect”, this psychological phenomenon is that people usually have more favorable impression of their familiar things, for example, two “face” are similar people standing together, a familiar and a strange, in this case, you will generally think that they are familiar with the person better.
It should be pointed out that the “exposure effect” is a certain limit, if something gives you a bad feeling at the beginning, or a person and you have a conflict or disagreement, or something in front of your eyes too often, then this effect will not be produced.
Finally, when you look in the mirror, you observe a dynamic face, while the photo of you is static, at the same time, you will certainly be more familiar with their own appearance in the mirror than in the photo, and you will not hate their appearance in the mirror, not to mention the conflict with it, of course, you can not look in the mirror all day.
Therefore, it can be said that under the dual effect of “frozen face effect” and “exposure effect”, you are likely to make a judgment that you look better in the mirror than in the photo. However, there are exceptions to this, such as a great photo or a good retouching, it is a different story.
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