The Mona Lisa
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The “Mona Lisa Effect” — the impression that the eyes of a subject are staring right at or following a viewer — is actually a misnomer, German researchers found in a study published this week.
The eerie effect — named after the world’s most famous portrait — is real, just not in Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, the study found.
“The effect itself is undeniable and demonstrable,” said Dr. Sebastian Loth, a researcher at the Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology at Bielefeld University and one of the two authors of the study.
The effect only works when the subject of a painting stares straight ahead. But La Gioconda’s gaze tilts right, researchers found.
“With the Mona Lisa, of all paintings, we didn’t get this impression,” Loth added.
For the study, 24 people looked at the Mona Lisa on a computer screen and tried to assess the direction of her gaze — and almost all the 2,000 assessments indicated that she was staring at their right-hand side.
More specifically, the angle of her gaze was at 15.4 degrees on average, landing approximately on a viewer’s right ear, or over their shoulder — and not their eyes.
“Thus, it is clear that the term ‘Mona Lisa Effect’ is nothing but a misnomer,” concluded Dr. Gernot Horstmann, the study’s other co-author and Loth’s university colleague.
“It illustrates the strong desire to be looked at and to be someone else’s center of attention — to be relevant to someone, even if you don’t know the person at all.”
The study is published in the peer-reviewed journal i-Perception.
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