The facial feature that’s most important, according to science

I don’t know when it happened, but all of the sudden it seems that eyebrows matter more than eyelashes. Maybe it’s true, or maybe it is a personal preference (Hey, I’m still an eyelash girl), but according to a new study, eyebrows rule everything around us. Hear us out.

According to Javid Sadr, a professor of psych at the University of Lethbridge, eyebrows serve a social function unlike most other facial features. As told to Yahoo, eyebrows are imperative for the act of expression, which is a key factor to having a face-to-face social interaction. Naturally and without realizing it, we are all paying attention to each other’s eyebrows, and I don’t mean the last time someone plucked theirs. When speaking with someone, you are aware if they are interested in your story, surprised, nervous, scared, or anything else. You are cued into those feelings — largely because of someone’s eyebrows.

Sure, mouths and eyes help to read emotional expressions as well, but the eyebrows come first, apparently. Sadr explained that we “place a lot of stock” in eyebrow changes, shapes, color, etcetera because of how pivotal they are to our social interactions.

Along with a few other professors, Sadr hosted a study to prove that eyebrows are a way to distinguish one person from the other. The study, published in Perception in 2003, was composed of a group of people studying 25 different pictures of celebrities. The first round of pictures featured celebrities without their eyebrows, and the second round featured them without their actual eyes.

56% of the study group could name the celebrities without their eyes, but only 46% could name them without their brows. What does that mean? Eyebrows actually hold a bigger weight for identifying a person. So, basically, you can thank your eyebrows the next time someone recognizes you in the grocery store.

Eyebrows, according to science, are there to help you be you, so decorate them, tweeze them, elongate them, pluck them, and color them all you want. It is only making you more you.

Featured image via Giphy