Purpose:

To validate crowdsourced perceptions of breasts with their alignment to the aesthetics of breast augmentation patients.

 

Methods:

A prospective cross-sectional study was performed using participants enrolled through the Amazon Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform (Amazon Web Services, Amazon, Seattle, WA) to obtain participant opinions of how closely patient breasts aligned with previously obtained results of 4 ideal breast characteristics. Outcomes were reported based on the correlation between breast attractiveness and alignment to ideal breast characteristics, both before and after breast implant procedures.

 

Results:

2306 responses from 737 participants reported patient photograph alignment with ideal breast projection proportion (1.0) as having the highest correlation to opinions of heightened aesthetic beauty (R = 0.98, P < 0.001), and ideal nipple direction (front) as having the lowest correlation to aesthetic beauty (R = 0.90, P < 0.001). Younger age groups (18-24) and participants with a high school diploma or less rated patients as less attractive, while married and wealthy individuals reported higher attraction levels.

 

Discussion:

 

Understanding public perception of ideal breast characteristics is important for breast augmentation procedures and crowdsourcing can be used to achieve this.

 

Patient photographs before and after breast implant procedures show that projection proportion is the most important factor for aesthetic beauty, with demographic differences and changing views based on number of children raised also playing a role.

 

The ranked order of aesthetic importance for breast characteristics is projection proportion, width relative to buttock width, and width relative to shoulder width, with nipple direction being less important.

 

Conclusion:

 

Crowdsourcing and visual scale assessment can identify public perception of ideal breast characteristics, with projection proportion and lateral breast width being most important. Data from crowdsourcing studies can inform aesthetic industry of trends and preferences, identify up-and-coming procedures and changes in public perception, allowing direct feedback from patients.

 

Funding/Acknowledgments:

Dr. Kelly is an employee of  Love My Delta Inc., Philadelphia, PA, USA, the funding source of this study. Dr. Kelly, Mr. Comstock, and Dr. Smartt are cofounders of and have equity interests in Love My Delta Inc. Drs. Shauly and Gould are board members with no equity interest.