Carlos ARCE-LOPERA, Takanori IGARASHI¹, Keisuke NAKAO¹, and Katsunori OKAJIMA²

Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, Yokohama 240-8501, Japan ¹Beauty Cosmetic Research Laboratory, Kao Corporation, Sumida, Tokyo 131-8501, Japan ²Faculty of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, Yokohama 240-8501, Japan

(Received January 7, 2012; Revised February 20, 2012; Accepted February 24, 2012)

Age perception is a better biomarker of skin aging than chronological age. However, the optical cues that determine the perception of human skin age are difficult to assess given the complex interactions between light and the multi layered structure of the skin. The aim of the present study is to clarify the independent contribution of both diffuse and specular reflection components to the skin age perception. First, according to our results, subjects were able to estimate the age of skin only by using the diffuse reflection component. Moreover, we showed that inclusion of the specular reflection component added on average 5 years to their age estimation. Second, by artificially manipulating the specular component, we concluded that the luminance distribution affects the perceived age of the skin.

Key words: diffuse reflectance, specular reflectance, age perception, facial skin, image analysis