There is evidence for a tendency for European portrait paintings to have the head oriented so that the left side of the face is visible more than the right side. This is particularly the case for female sitters. There is evidence that the left side of the face shows emotion more than the right side does, so it has been proposed that there is a tendency for artists or sitters to want to show more of the emotionality of the sitter. It is shown here that the left-side tendency varies by date. In two studies, large samples were drawn from European gallery collections (study 1) and the National Portrait Gallery in London (study 2). The studies showed a strong left side tendency before 1600, absence of the tendency in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and some recurrence of it in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, modulated by changing gender differences. These findings show that cultural, historical, or art-historical factors are likely to be involved in determining tendencies in head orientation as well as psychological ones.

有证据表明，欧洲人像绘画的头部趋于定向，使得面部的左侧比右侧更明显。对于女性保姆来说尤其如此。有证据表明，面部的左侧比右侧显示更多的情感，因此，有人建议艺术家或保姆倾向于显示更多保姆的情感。此处显示左侧趋势随日期变化。在两项研究中，从欧洲画廊藏品（研究1）和伦敦国家肖像画廊（研究2）中抽取了大样本。研究表明，在1600年之前，左侧趋势很强，在17和18世纪没有这种趋势，并且在19和20世纪再次出现这种趋势，通过改变性别差异来调节。这些发现表明，文化，历史或艺术历史因素可能与确定头部取向和心理趋势有关。