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Relationship between perceptual and structural variation of human faces: cross-cultural comparison
Pavlovič, Ondřej ; Kleisner, Karel (advisor) ; Třebický, Vít (referee) ; Marcinkowska, Urszula (referee)
ONDŘEJ PAVLOVIČ RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERCEPTUAL AND STRUCTURAL VARIATION OF HUMAN FACES: CROSS- CULTURAL COMPARISON ABSTRAKT The perception of facial features is a fundamental aspect of human culture, influencing daily interactions and relationships. This thesis explores the cross-cultural dynamics of facial perception. First, the theoretical introduction establishes the centrality of facial perception across cultures. Empirical studies included in this thesis elucidate the convergence and divergence of attractiveness standards among cultures. Additionally, this thesis explores the interplay between facial shape dimorphism, color dimorphism, and typicality across a wide variety of populations. The context of Vietnamese immigrants in the Czech Republic offers a unique lens to study the impact of the sociocultural environment on facial perception and preferences. By analyzing attractiveness assessments provided by Czech Europeans, Czech Vietnamese, and Asian Vietnamese raters for Czech and Vietnamese faces, the studies included in this thesis further elucidate the convergence and divergence of attractiveness standards across these groups. The results of these studies underscore the role of facial averageness as a universally significant trait in attractiveness judgments. Studies added to the appendix explore...
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Multi-component signalling in turtles and squamate reptiles
Brejcha, Jindřich ; Kleisner, Karel (advisor) ; Rehák, Ivan (referee) ; Carazo, Pau (referee)
Multicomponent signals are complex stimuli directed to receptors of only single modality. Colourful ornaments of animals are multicomponent signals. In this thesis I present results of studies on the origin of coloration in turtles and squamate reptiles together with notes on relativistic view of the functionality of animal coloration. The results show that turtle coloration, which have been studied only marginally until now, is shaped by sexual selection. It is shown that turtles share mechanisms of coloration by vertical organization of different pigment cell types together with squamate reptiles. Turtles also produce colour by organization of collagen fibres which share trait with birds and mammals. Mechanisms of body coloration differ dramatically between closely related turtle species studied even though the individual constituting components are shared among these species. On the example of polymorphic lizards, it is shown that qualitative categorical difference between groups of individuals of the same population are maintained based on quantitative changes in pigment contents regulated by ancient loci shared by different species. The turtles and reptiles are valuable source of our knowledge on the evolution of multicomponent visual signalling due to their intriguing composition of skin....
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The evolved information processing design of the human mating mind
Semchenko, Ayten Yeşim ; Kleisner, Karel (advisor) ; Varella Valentova, Jaroslava (referee) ; Marcinkowska, Urszula (referee)
In this dissertation, I investigated the psychological adaptations designed to overcome the challenge of mate acquisition through its sub-problems such as (not) missing an opportunity to interact with a potentially suitable partner, identifying mates who exhibit specific fitness-relevant cues, identifying mates that are available to us, and identifying (right) ways of appearance-enhancement. In an attempt to unravel the psychological adaptations designed to solve the stated sub-problems of mate acquisition, I studied the effect of the theoretically-anchored inputs such as biological sex, incomplete visual information, mating context, lumbar curvature angle, and back arching behavior. Through investigating the effects of those inputs (e.g., mating context and lumbar curvature angle), I found outputs consistent with the proposed psychological adaptations (e.g., male preference for an intermediate lumbar curvature angle in women) designed to solve the sub-problems of mate acquisition (e.g., identifying mates with the specific fitness-enhancing trait). Furthermore, these findings indicated that our approach to studying the human mating mind led to accurately identified inputs producing the predicted outputs.
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Quantitative shape analysis of diatom frustules: asymmetry, allometry and morphospace structure
Woodard, Kateřina ; Neustupa, Jiří (advisor) ; Kleisner, Karel (referee) ; Lenarczyk, Joanna (referee)
This thesis is focused on geometric morphometrics of allometric and asymmetric variation in frustule shape of raphid pennate diatoms. While pronounced shape changes of diatom frustules related to their size reduction were many times reflected in diatom research, formal quantitative evaluation of these patterns has been rarely attempted. My thesis used semilandmark based geometric morphometrics of frustule outlines in analyses of morphological phenomena related to size reduction throughout mitotic phase of the life cycle, such as allometry, symmetry of frustules and their asymmetric deviations. The analyses showed that morphological allometry represents the dominant element of shape variation in several naviculoid species, such as Luticola poulickovae, Navicula cryptocephala, Sellaphora pupula. Shape changes during size reduction throughout the vegetative part of these taxa mostly involved a simultaneous increase in circularity of valve outlines and disparity among cells. On the other hand, asymmetry of valves proved to be unrelated to size changes within populations. However, the morphometric analyses of Luticola poulickovae revealed that there was a subtle but significant side-oriented asymmetry of valve outlines that is related to the position of the primary and secondary valve sides. In...
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Cross-cultural perception of sexual dimorphism in human face
Fiala, Vojtěch ; Kleisner, Karel (advisor) ; Králík, Miroslav (referee) ; Lobmaier, Janek Simon (referee)
Evolutionary psychology supposes that human behaviour consists of adaptive tools, functional and mutually intertwined, that help an individual to survive and reproduce. Human proneness to ascribe psychological characteristics, based on an individual's facial features, may present such an adaptive tool. Facial sex-typicality, the individual representation of facial features regarding a given sex (male/female), affects other ascribed characteristics. Potential functional associations between sexually dimorphic facial structure, perceived sex-typicality, and physiological and behavioural correlates are the very topic of this thesis. Following theoretical background, there are three studies listed as 'Published studies' (Study 1-3). Study 4, the submitted manuscript, has not been peer-reviewed yet. Study 5, already published, is listed as 'Appendix'. Study 1 (Fiala et al., 2021) compares the effects of perceived 'sex-typicality' and measured sexual shape dimorphism on ratings of attractiveness across five distant countries. Rating participants and stimuli faces were always from the same country. Whilst perceived female femininity is preferred across cultures, analysis of preference of perceived male masculinity and both-sex measured sex-typicality reveals cross-cultural discrepancies. Study 2 (Fiala et...
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Allometric diversity and plasticity of cellular morphologies of desmids (Desmidiales, Zygnematophyceae)
Mezník, Daniel Heliodor ; Neustupa, Jiří (advisor) ; Kleisner, Karel (referee)
If the proportions of two features of an organism change during its growth, their relationships can be described as allometry. The first partof this thesis quantifies the allometric relationship of semicellular perimeter and area of 11 species of unicellular microalgae from the genus Euastrum. These algae are recognized for their fractalmorphology, which is theorized to be an adaptation for increasing their surface area which is used to absorb nutrients.Thequestion was whether larger individuals within a population have a more complex shape and therefore a longer perimeter. I examined microphotographs of tens of semicells obtained from preserved wild populations. All included species exhibited a marked increase in shape complexity. The same trend could be noticed on and interspecific level. I compared these results to existing studies conducted on the related Micrasterias lineage. The second part of this thesis deals with allometric changes during semicells ontogeny in both Euastrum and Micrasterias. I analyzed growing clonal cultures using geometric morphometry. Specifically, I observed the relative position of 11 structurally homologous landmarks on semicells of different ages. This has been the first experiment of its kind on these model organisms. Idescribed theontogenetic change in landmark...
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Does phylogenetic proximity positively correlates with the likelihood of an evolutionary origin of mimicry?
Kováčová, Katarína ; Kleisner, Karel (advisor) ; Raška, Jan (referee)
Mimicry represents a diverse group of similarities, which belongs to the phenomena of evolutionary biology. Even though mimicry is often interpreted as a convincing exam- ple of natural selection, it is necessary to consider the morphological and organizational processes that are responsible for the formation of organisms. In our work, we tested the hypothesis that mimicry occurs more frequently among insect genus that are phylogenet- ically closer than those that are phylogenetically more distant. To elaborate the work, we used 112 genus from the Insecta and Arachnida classes. The hypothesis was tested glob- ally, continentally and at the order level. Our hypothesis has not been refuted in Central and South America, Asia and Australia. At the order level, it was not contradicted in the order of Lepidoptera. We hypothesize that the explanation can be deduced from radical phenotypic changes that would ultimately disadvantage the given organism. 1
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The role of imprinting-like effects and social learning for persistence of variability of iris and hair color in European population
Joudal, Lukáš ; Kleisner, Karel (advisor) ; Bártová, Klára (referee)
In bachelor's thesis I deal with the influence of various factors on the color of hair and eyes of the European population. In Europe, many still find blond and light eye colour population despite there is much darker colored populations. Here are some of the mechanisms causing maintain high polymorphism in the European population. The first part of bachelor's thesis focuses on a brief description of the structure of the European population. The thesis also discusses the genetic determination of hair and eyes, its diversity and the differences of the population from the populations of Asia and Africa. In the next section, we discuss the emergence and spread of recessive alleles light eye color a blonde in Europe, particularly northern Europe. The following is a description of the mechanisms influencing the propagation and conservation of recessive alleles. In the penultimate chapter describes the relationship between the morphology of the face and eye color, and the last chapter summarizes the effects mentioned in the previous chapters and their effect on the length of the relationship between partners.
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Bilateral assymetry of desmids, populational phenomena and cellular complexity
Poláčková, Tereza ; Neustupa, Jiří (advisor) ; Kleisner, Karel (referee)
This thesis deals with the morphological asymmetry of the desmid genus Micrasterias (Desmidiales, Viridiplantae). In total, 71 populations belonging to 13 species sampled at 31 different locations were used. In addition to the traditional approach of the biradial asymmetry decomposition (joint PCA of the symmetric copies of all the cells) a novel approach based on a PCA of the symmetric copies of each cell separately was also used. Both these methods were found to be replaceable, but the second method may have broader applications. The dominant asymmetric pattern was described by the differences in shape of the opposite semicells, i.e. those segments that represent the juvenile and adult parts of the cells. Cellular ontogenesis of semicells is separated in time and, therefore, this asymmetry may be determined by varying abiotic conditions. However, a part of this asymmetric pattern would also be explained by ontogenetic differences among mature and developing semicells. The asymmetry between the left and right part of the cells, as well as the transversal asymmetry proved to be less conspicuous. Relative representation of the different asymmetric patterns between populations proved to be relatively stable. Morphological complexity did not correlate with the asymmetric levels. This means that the...
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