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Men are seen as more manly if they appear taller and heavier - regardless of how much their face shape differs from a woman.

Researchers at the University of St Andrews used scans of male and female faces to investigate the perception of masculinity.

They found that facial cues to body height and weight had 'substantial and independent' effects on how the men were seen. 

Researchers at the University of St Andrews used scans of faces to investigate the perception of masculinity. They found that men who looked taller and heavier (Chris Hemsworth pictured left and Leonardo DiCaprio pictured right) appeared more masculine, even if they had feminine-looking faces

Iris Holzleitner, lead author and PhD student at the University's Perception laboratory, said masculinity has powerful effects on attractiveness, as well as a range of other attributes, such as leadership and trust.

'It is important that we understand the physical basis of perceptions and the origins of masculine stereotypes. 

'Here, we showed that perceived facial masculinity has several distinct physical origins,' she said.

'What is new about our study is that we tested whether cues to this individual variation in height and weight may be important when judging men's "masculinity".

'By comparing the face shape of very short and very tall men as well as that of very light and very heavy men, the researchers were able to determine facial correlates of body height and weight.'

Masculinity has often been measured as the average difference between men and women's face shape. 

However, previous studies found that masculinity measured from faces does surprisingly poorly in explaining women's perception of masculinity.

Masculine face shape develops under the influence of male sex hormones, which also lead to men being on average taller and heavier than women. 

But, individual height and weight can differ substantially, with some men being, for example, much shorter and some women being much taller than the average man or woman.

As part of the study, the researchers also asked people to judge the height and weight of the men in the sample, using just their faces.

As part of the study, the researchers also asked people to judge the height and weight of men, using just their faces. When presented with the faces of two men, the one with the longer face (illustrated by Adam Levine left) was considered to be taller, compared to a man with a shorter face (Zac Efron pictured right)

'We were surprised to found that the facial cues of height and weight we identified predicted perceptions of height and weight much stronger than actual height and weight,' said co-author Professor David Perrett from the School of Psychology and Neuroscience. 

The findings suggest people base their perceptual judgments on cues that are rooted in actual physical differences, but they go on to read too much into these cues.

'We seem to have learned that, for example, being tall is associated with a more elongated face shape. 

'If presented with the faces of two equally-tall men, and one of them has a slightly longer face than the other, we will be likely to think that the man with the longer face is also taller,' Professor Perrett continued.

The authors of the study, published in scholarly journal Perception this week, think that this perceptual over-generalisation may also explain their main finding on masculinity.