Perception of dental midline deviation and smile attractiveness by eye-tracking and aesthetic ratings
Article Category: research-article
Pubblicato online: 21 ott 2021
Pagine: 187 - 196
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21307/aoj-2021.020
© 2021 Sümeyye Aşik., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Aim
To evaluate the perception of smile aesthetics and midline deviation considered by orthodontists (ORT), dentists (DT), patient’s-relatives (PR), and laypersons (LP) using an eye-tracking device and survey.
Methods
The study invited the participation of 42 orthodontists, 51 dentists, 50 patient-relatives, and 52 laypersons. A posed smile photograph of a female was chosen as a base image. The dental midline (DML) was digitally moved 1 mm (DML1R, DML1L), 2 mm (DML2R, DML2L), 3 mm (DML3R, DML3L), and 4 mm (DML4R, DML4L) on the base image’s right (DMLR) and left (DMLL) segments. Eight modified images were subsequently obtained. The base, modified, and repeated images were randomly arranged and uploaded into the Tobii Pro Lab software program for assessment by the participants. An eye-tracking dataset included first fixation duration (FFD), total fixation duration (TFD), and visit counts (VC). The participants also evaluated the photographs on the survey forms via a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and a Likert scale. The intra-group relations and inter-group correlations were evaluated statistically.
Results
The TFD for the DML2R photograph was found to be statistically significant between the assessment groups (
Conclusion
The fixation time between the participant groups increased when there was a 2 mm deviation. A 2 mm shift in the DML was noticed by all participant groups and was considered unaesthetic.