Where Do We Look? Assessing Gaze Patterns in Cosmetic Facelift Surgery with Eye Tracking Technology

PURPOSE:Aesthetics plays a central role in determining success in plastic surgery. Understanding perceptions of favorable aesthetics is critical to ensure patient satisfaction. Eye-tracking technology offers an objective way to evaluate attention and understand how viewers direct their focus in patients who undergo cosmetic facelift procedures. METHODS:Thirty-six subjects ranging from layperson to attending plastic surgeon viewed 15 sets of photos before and after patients underwent an elective facelift procedure. They were instructed to evaluate the aesthetic quality on a Likert scale, while eye-tracking equipment tracked their gaze and analyzed their distribution of attention. RESULTS:Post-operative images showed a Likert score improvement of 0.51±0.26, with the greatest difference in attending cosmetic plastic surgeons (1.36±0.22; p