Artists who have painted portraits overwhelmingly represented the sitter in some degree of profile, emphasizing one cheek. When the sitter was female, the left cheek was shown with much greater frequency than the right. However, in forced-choice judgments between original and mirror-reversed portraits, versions emphasizing the right cheek were preferred by male and female, dextral and sinistral subjects, irrespective of the sitter's sex. This may result from a left visual-field perceptual bias attributable to hemispheric specialization or from changing cultural biases.
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