An investigation of matching symmetry in the human pinnae with possible implications for 3D ear recognition and sound localization
Open accessAbstract
The human external ears, or pinnae, have an intriguing shape and, like most parts of the human external body, bilateral symmetry is observed between left and right. It is a well-known part of our auditory sensory system and mediates the spatial localization of incoming sounds in 3D from monaural cues due to its shape-specific filtering as well as binaural cues due to the paired bilateral locations of the left and right ears. Another less broadly appreciated aspect of the human pinna shape is its uniqueness from one individual to another, which is on the level of what is seen in fingerprints and facial features. This makes pinnae very useful in human identification, which is of great interest in biometrics and forensics. Anatomically, the type of symmetry observed is known as matching symmetry, with structures present as separate mirror copies on both sides of the body, and in this work we report the first such investigation of the human pinna in 3D. Within the framework of geometric morphometrics, we started by partitioning ear shape, represented in a spatially dense way, into patterns of symmetry and asymmetry, following a two-factor anova design. Matching symmetry was measured in all substructures of the pinna anatomy. However, substructures that 'stick out' such as the helix, tragus, and lobule also contained a fair degree of asymmetry. In contrast, substructures such as the conchae, antitragus, and antihelix expressed relatively stronger degrees of symmetric variation in relation to their levels of asymmetry. Insights gained from this study were injected into an accompanying identification setup exploiting matching symmetry where improved performance is demonstrated. Finally, possible implications of the results in the context of ear recognition as well as sound localization are discussed.
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A spatially dense mesh of 7,150 quasi-landmarks was mapped onto each image and its reflection, resulting in homologous vertices and triangles across individuals.
“A spatially dense mesh of 7,150 quasi-landmarks (QLs) was mapped onto each image and its reflection. As a result of this mapping, the vertices and triangles are homologous across individuals [80].”
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Investigating the case of human nose shape and climate adaptation
Zaidi, A. A., Mattern, B. C., Claes, P., McEcoy, B., Hughes, C., & Shriver, M. D. (2017) · PLOS Genetics · doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1006616 · Cited by 117 · see citing works
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- Authors
- Claes, P., Reijniers, J., Shriver, M. D., Snyders, J., Suetens, P., Nielandt, J., De Tré, G., & Vandermeulen, D.
- Affiliations
- Universitair Ziekenhuis Leuven (BE)
- University of Antwerp (BE)
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- Ghent University (BE)
- Department of Telecommunications and Information Processing, Database, Document and Content Management Research Group Ghent University Ghent Belgium
- Corresponding author
- Claes, Peter
- Venue
- Journal of Anatomy
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2014-11-09
- Volume
- 226
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 60-72
- ISSN
- 0021-8782 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-7580
- PMC
- PMC4313899
- OpenAlex
- W2060895903
- Cited by
- 32
- References
- 71
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 2.77
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Anatomy (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Lirias (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Science and Technology in Flanders
- Research Program of the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders (Belgium)
- Research Fund KU Leuven
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Geometry and Topology › Morphological variations and asymmetry
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology › Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Signal Processing › Biometric Identification and Security
- Keywords
- ear shape, bilateral symmetry, ear asymmetry, sound localization, geometric morphometrics, ear recognition, biometrics, helix, tragus, antihelix
- MeSH terms
- Analysis of Variance, Anthropometry, Humans, Sound Localization, Ear Auricle, Biometric Identification
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