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Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but according to research conducted by a UBC medical student, eye candy fails to find a sweet tooth in patients with a rare disorder.
Chris Waite, a third-year med student, has studied how patients with prosopagnosia -- the inability to recognize familiar faces, even family members, because of brain injury -- perceive facial attractiveness. The findings may provide another assessment tool to help clinicians localize areas of brain damage.
“We don’t know a tenth of what goes on the brain,” says the 26-year-old. “Face perception is a highly complex visual skill. Exploring how the brain processes judgments about facial beauty help us identify the role of various regions of the brain.”
Waite worked with UBC prof Jason Barton, Canada Research Chair in the Neuropsychology of Vision and Eye Movements, and investigators from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The study was the first of its kind and earned Waite the American Academy of Neurology Award for best medical student essay.
The research team studied eight individuals with prosopagnosia, an impairment also known as of face-blindness. They wanted to know where the brain processes visual information that adds up to a judgment about facial attractiveness.
Individuals with prosopagnosia have trouble extracting and integrating information they see in a face and rely on other characteristics, such as hair, body shape and gait to recognize people. The condition can result from trauma to the head, illness such as encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain, stroke, coma or insufficient oxygen supply at birth. In 2006, a web survey of 1,600 people conducted jointly by a team from Harvard and University College London suggested that up to two per cent of people have some degree of face-blindness.
The damaged area of the brain for those with face-blindness is usually found in the medial side of the occipital (low back of the brain, near the spinal cord) and temporal, or side lobes. The region is called the fusiform face area. Because attractiveness depends on non-changing elements of facial structure -- which in Western society include a strong jaw, big eyes and a straight nose -- it was thought that attractiveness might be processed in this area.
However, because attractiveness is a social signal that helps us judge personality or mating potential, scientists believed it might be processed in a region of the brain that “reads” changing facial properties, an area called the superior temporal sulcus that is located at the tops of the temporal lobes. Although prosopagnosia patients cannot identify faces, they can judge subtle facial clues, such as a raised eyebrow or pursed lips that express emotion and convey social cues.
The investigators’ wanted to determine if recognizing facial beauty took place in the region that supports identification (fusiform face) or the one supporting social signals (superior temporal sulcus).
The research subjects, heterosexual men and women prosopagnosics ranging in age from 20s to 60s, were shown 80 anonymous male and female faces, both average and attractive, and asked to rate their attractiveness. A second test involved viewing a series of similar images while researchers timed how long participants looked at each image. A control group of 19 provided comparison data. Prosopagnosics also looked at famous beautiful faces to further test the relationship between ability to identify familiar faces and ability to judge beauty.
Both tasks showed that the same damage that prevented them from identifying faces impaired prosopagnosics in processing facial attractiveness. They rated the attractiveness of beautiful faces only slightly higher than average faces. Also, they were much more willing than the control group to continue looking at images of average faces.
The researchers concluded that processing facial attractiveness must use the same neural pathways -- those found in the fusiform region of the brain -- used to process identity.
“While the beauty of a face might seem a more fitting topic for an artist, this work helps settle a debate by showing that areas that code the identity of a face also play a key role in the perception of beauty. It helps us understand the contributions of different ‘modules’ of the brain to human experience,” says Barton, an investigator at the Brain Research Centre at UBC Hospital and a member of the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI).
Although Waite feels fortunate to have conducted research with eminent neuroscientists, his heart still belongs to medicine and vision science in particular, influenced in part by his mother who is an optician.
“I think vision is the most important sense,” he says. “If I could fix something to make a patient’s life better, that would be a great feeling. That’s what I want to do.”
Once he completes his undergraduate degree in medicine, Waite is considering a residency in ophthalmology, among other options.
Funding for the study was provided by the American Academy of Neurology and the UBC Dept. of Ophthalmology Thomas Dohm Scholarship.
The Brain Research Centre at Vancouver Hospital, a partnership between VCHRI and UBC’s Faculty of Medicine, has more than 200 investigators with broad, multi-disciplinary research expertise to advance knowledge of the brain and to explore new discoveries and technologies that have the potential to reduce the suffering and cost associated with disease and injuries of the brain.
http://www.ubc.ca/
Computer Taught To Recognize Attractiveness In Women
"Beauty," goes the old saying, "is in the eye of the beholder." But does the beholder have to be human?
Not necessarily, say scientists at Tel Aviv University. Amit Kagian, an M.Sc. graduate from the TAU School of Computer Sciences, has successfully "taught" a computer how to interpret attractiveness in women. But there's a more serious dimension to this issue that reaches beyond mere vanity. The discovery is a step towards developing artificial intelligence in computers. Other applications for the software could be in plastic and reconstructive surgery and computer visualization programs such as face recognition technologies.
From Mathematics to Aesthetics
"Until now, computers have been taught how to identify basic facial characteristics, such as the difference between a woman and a man, and even to detect facial expressions," says Kagian. "But our software lets a computer make an aesthetic judgment. Linked to sentiments and abstract thought processes, humans can make a judgment, but they usually don't understand how they arrived at their conclusions."
In the first step of the study, 30 men and women were presented with 100 different faces of Caucasian women, roughly of the same age, and were asked to judge the beauty of each face. The subjects rated the images on a scale of 1 through 7 and did not explain why they chose certain scores. Kagian and his colleagues then went to the computer and processed and mapped the geometric shape of facial features mathematically.
Additional features such as face symmetry, smoothness of the skin and hair color were fed into the analysis as well. Based on human preferences, the machine "learned" the relation between facial features and attractiveness scores and was then put to the test on a fresh set of faces.
Says Kagian, "The computer produced impressive results -- its rankings were very similar to the rankings people gave." This is considered a remarkable achievement, believes Kagian, because it's as though the computer "learned" implicitly how to interpret beauty through processing previous data it had received.
Beauty is Golden
The notion that beauty can be boiled down to binary data and interpreted by a mathematical model is nothing new. More than 2,000 years ago the Greek mystic, philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras observed the connection between math, geometry and beauty. He reasoned that features of physical objects corresponding to the "golden ratio" were considered most attractive.
"I know that Plato connected the good to the beautiful," says Kagian. "Personally, I believe that some kind of universal correctness to beauty exists in nature, an aesthetic interpretation of the universal truth. But because each of us is trapped with our own human biases and personalized viewpoints, this may detract us from finding the ultimate formula to a complete understanding of beauty."
Kagian, who studied under the Adi Lautman multidisciplinary program for outstanding students at Tel Aviv University, says that a possible next step is to teach computers how to recognize "beauty" in men. This may be more difficult. Psychological research has shown that there is less agreement as to what defines "male beauty" among human subjects. And his own portrait, jokes Kagian, will not be part of the experiment.
"I would probably blow up the machine," he says.
Kagian published the findings in the scientific journal Vision Research. Co-authors on the work were Kagian's supervisors Prof. Eytan Ruppin and Prof. Gideon Dror.
https://www.telavivuniv.org/Default.aspx
Not necessarily, say scientists at Tel Aviv University. Amit Kagian, an M.Sc. graduate from the TAU School of Computer Sciences, has successfully "taught" a computer how to interpret attractiveness in women. But there's a more serious dimension to this issue that reaches beyond mere vanity. The discovery is a step towards developing artificial intelligence in computers. Other applications for the software could be in plastic and reconstructive surgery and computer visualization programs such as face recognition technologies.
From Mathematics to Aesthetics
"Until now, computers have been taught how to identify basic facial characteristics, such as the difference between a woman and a man, and even to detect facial expressions," says Kagian. "But our software lets a computer make an aesthetic judgment. Linked to sentiments and abstract thought processes, humans can make a judgment, but they usually don't understand how they arrived at their conclusions."
In the first step of the study, 30 men and women were presented with 100 different faces of Caucasian women, roughly of the same age, and were asked to judge the beauty of each face. The subjects rated the images on a scale of 1 through 7 and did not explain why they chose certain scores. Kagian and his colleagues then went to the computer and processed and mapped the geometric shape of facial features mathematically.
Additional features such as face symmetry, smoothness of the skin and hair color were fed into the analysis as well. Based on human preferences, the machine "learned" the relation between facial features and attractiveness scores and was then put to the test on a fresh set of faces.
Says Kagian, "The computer produced impressive results -- its rankings were very similar to the rankings people gave." This is considered a remarkable achievement, believes Kagian, because it's as though the computer "learned" implicitly how to interpret beauty through processing previous data it had received.
Beauty is Golden
The notion that beauty can be boiled down to binary data and interpreted by a mathematical model is nothing new. More than 2,000 years ago the Greek mystic, philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras observed the connection between math, geometry and beauty. He reasoned that features of physical objects corresponding to the "golden ratio" were considered most attractive.
"I know that Plato connected the good to the beautiful," says Kagian. "Personally, I believe that some kind of universal correctness to beauty exists in nature, an aesthetic interpretation of the universal truth. But because each of us is trapped with our own human biases and personalized viewpoints, this may detract us from finding the ultimate formula to a complete understanding of beauty."
Kagian, who studied under the Adi Lautman multidisciplinary program for outstanding students at Tel Aviv University, says that a possible next step is to teach computers how to recognize "beauty" in men. This may be more difficult. Psychological research has shown that there is less agreement as to what defines "male beauty" among human subjects. And his own portrait, jokes Kagian, will not be part of the experiment.
"I would probably blow up the machine," he says.
Kagian published the findings in the scientific journal Vision Research. Co-authors on the work were Kagian's supervisors Prof. Eytan Ruppin and Prof. Gideon Dror.
https://www.telavivuniv.org/Default.aspx
First Impressions Of Beauty May Demonstrate Why The Pretty Prosper
We might not be able to resist a pretty face after all, according to a report from the University of Pennsylvania. Experiments in which subjects were given a fraction of a second to judge "attractiveness" offered further evidence that our preference for beauty might be hard-wired. People who participated in the studies were also more likely to associate pretty faces with positive traits.
"We're able to judge attractiveness with surprising speed and on the basis of very little information," said Ingrid Olson, a professor in Penn's Department of Psychology and researcher at Penn's Center for Cognitive Neurosciece. "It seems that pretty faces 'prime' our minds to make us more likely to associate the pretty face with a positive emotion."
Olson, along with co-author Christy Marshuetz, of Yale University recently published their findings in the journal Emotion, a publication of the American Psychological Association. The researchers set out to study cognitive processes behind a very real phenomenon: physically attractive people have advantages that unattractive people do not.
"Research has demonstrated time and again that there are tremendous social and economic benefits to being attractive," Olson said. "Attractive people are paid more, are judged more intelligent and will receive more attention in most facets of life.
"This favoritism, while poorly understood, seems to be innate and cross-cultural. Studies suggest that even infants prefer pretty faces," Olson said.
In their report, the researchers describe three experiments to investigate the preference for attractiveness.
The first study tested the idea that beauty can be assessed rapidly by asking study participants to rate faces pictures of non-famous males and females taken from three different high school yearbooks and the Internet shown for .013 seconds on a computer screen.
Although participants reported that they could not see the faces and that they were guessing on each trial, they were able to accurately rate the attractiveness of those faces.
"There are no definite rules to what kind of face can be called beautiful, but we chose faces of either extreme very ugly or very pretty," Olson said. "Seen rapidly, viewers were able to make what amounted to an unconscious, albeit accurate, assessment of physical beauty."
In their second and third experiments, the researchers explored the notion of "priming" whether or not seeing a pretty face makes a viewer more likely to associate that face with positive attributes. The second experiment involved rapidly showing a face on the screen, followed shortly thereafter by a word in white text on a black screen. Participants were instructed to ignore the face and were timed on how quickly they could classify the word as either good or bad. Almost uniformly, response times to good words, such as "laughter" or "happiness," were faster after viewing an attractive face.
"In a way, pretty faces are rewarding; they make us more likely to think good thoughts," said Olson. "There are some underlying processes going on in the brain that prejudice us to respond to attractive people better even if we are not aware of it."
They repeated the priming test in a third experiment, this time using images of houses, to see whether the beauty bias is a general phenomenon or one that is limited to socially important stimuli such as faces. Unlike faces, response times to good words were not faster after having viewed an attractive house.
"Faces hold a special power for us, perhaps more so than art or objects," Olson said. "The beauty bias has a real influence upon us, something we should be mindful of when dealing with others."
http://www.upenn.edu/
"We're able to judge attractiveness with surprising speed and on the basis of very little information," said Ingrid Olson, a professor in Penn's Department of Psychology and researcher at Penn's Center for Cognitive Neurosciece. "It seems that pretty faces 'prime' our minds to make us more likely to associate the pretty face with a positive emotion."
Olson, along with co-author Christy Marshuetz, of Yale University recently published their findings in the journal Emotion, a publication of the American Psychological Association. The researchers set out to study cognitive processes behind a very real phenomenon: physically attractive people have advantages that unattractive people do not.
"Research has demonstrated time and again that there are tremendous social and economic benefits to being attractive," Olson said. "Attractive people are paid more, are judged more intelligent and will receive more attention in most facets of life.
"This favoritism, while poorly understood, seems to be innate and cross-cultural. Studies suggest that even infants prefer pretty faces," Olson said.
In their report, the researchers describe three experiments to investigate the preference for attractiveness.
The first study tested the idea that beauty can be assessed rapidly by asking study participants to rate faces pictures of non-famous males and females taken from three different high school yearbooks and the Internet shown for .013 seconds on a computer screen.
Although participants reported that they could not see the faces and that they were guessing on each trial, they were able to accurately rate the attractiveness of those faces.
"There are no definite rules to what kind of face can be called beautiful, but we chose faces of either extreme very ugly or very pretty," Olson said. "Seen rapidly, viewers were able to make what amounted to an unconscious, albeit accurate, assessment of physical beauty."
In their second and third experiments, the researchers explored the notion of "priming" whether or not seeing a pretty face makes a viewer more likely to associate that face with positive attributes. The second experiment involved rapidly showing a face on the screen, followed shortly thereafter by a word in white text on a black screen. Participants were instructed to ignore the face and were timed on how quickly they could classify the word as either good or bad. Almost uniformly, response times to good words, such as "laughter" or "happiness," were faster after viewing an attractive face.
"In a way, pretty faces are rewarding; they make us more likely to think good thoughts," said Olson. "There are some underlying processes going on in the brain that prejudice us to respond to attractive people better even if we are not aware of it."
They repeated the priming test in a third experiment, this time using images of houses, to see whether the beauty bias is a general phenomenon or one that is limited to socially important stimuli such as faces. Unlike faces, response times to good words were not faster after having viewed an attractive house.
"Faces hold a special power for us, perhaps more so than art or objects," Olson said. "The beauty bias has a real influence upon us, something we should be mindful of when dealing with others."
http://www.upenn.edu/
Does He Love You So? Maybe It Really Is In His Face
Can you judge a man's faithfulness by his face? How about whether he would be a good father, or a good provider?
Many people believe they can, according to a University of Michigan study published in the December issue of Personal Relationships, a peer-reviewed academic journal.
U-M social psychologist Daniel J. Kruger conducted a series of on-line experiments showing 854 male and female undergraduate students versions of composite male faces that had been altered to look more or less masculine by adjusting, for example, the shape of the jaw, the strength of brow ridges and the thickness of lips.
Participants were asked which of the men they preferred as mates, dates, parents of their children, or companions for their girlfriends. They were also asked which men were most likely to behave in certain ways--starting a fight or hitting on someone else's girlfriend, for example.
"It's remarkable that minor physiological differences lead people to pre-judge a man's personality and behavior," said Kruger, a research scientist at the U-M School of Public Health and the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). "But even though physiognomy (the attribution of personality to faces) is thought to be a pseudoscience, a lot of people believe there's a link between looks and personality."
In terms of evolutionary psychology, there may be a kernel of truth in that belief, Kruger said. Facial masculinity is related to levels of testosterone during development, and testosterone levels are related to rates of infidelity, violence and divorce. "Facial masculinity may serve as a visual cue in female mate choice, much as the tail of the male peacock signals females about male fitness to reproduce."
In one study, participants linked more masculinized faces with riskier and more competitive behaviors, higher mating effort and lower parenting effort in comparison with less masculine faces.
Men with highly masculine faces were judged more likely to get into physical fights, challenge their bosses, sleep with many women, cheat on their partners and knowingly hit on someone else's girlfriend. Those with more feminine faces were judged to be more likely to be good husbands, be great with children, work hard at their jobs even though they didn't like them, and be emotionally supportive in long-term relationships.
"Men picked the less masculine-looking men to accompany their girlfriends on a weekend trip to another city," Kruger said, "and both men and women would prefer the less masculine versions as dating partners for their daughters."
Together, the studies show that highly masculine faces are associated with riskier and more competitive behavior, higher mating effort and lower parenting effort in comparison with less masculine faces.
"Both men and women generally respond to men with high and low facial masculinity in ways that could be expected to benefit their own reproductive success," Kruger said. "While the more masculine-looking men may be good bets for mating, the more feminine-looking men may be better bets as parenting partners. More feminine features suggest compassion and kindness, indicating that men are able and willing to invest in a long-term relationship and in any potential children."
Many people believe they can, according to a University of Michigan study published in the December issue of Personal Relationships, a peer-reviewed academic journal.
U-M social psychologist Daniel J. Kruger conducted a series of on-line experiments showing 854 male and female undergraduate students versions of composite male faces that had been altered to look more or less masculine by adjusting, for example, the shape of the jaw, the strength of brow ridges and the thickness of lips.
Participants were asked which of the men they preferred as mates, dates, parents of their children, or companions for their girlfriends. They were also asked which men were most likely to behave in certain ways--starting a fight or hitting on someone else's girlfriend, for example.
"It's remarkable that minor physiological differences lead people to pre-judge a man's personality and behavior," said Kruger, a research scientist at the U-M School of Public Health and the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). "But even though physiognomy (the attribution of personality to faces) is thought to be a pseudoscience, a lot of people believe there's a link between looks and personality."
In terms of evolutionary psychology, there may be a kernel of truth in that belief, Kruger said. Facial masculinity is related to levels of testosterone during development, and testosterone levels are related to rates of infidelity, violence and divorce. "Facial masculinity may serve as a visual cue in female mate choice, much as the tail of the male peacock signals females about male fitness to reproduce."
In one study, participants linked more masculinized faces with riskier and more competitive behaviors, higher mating effort and lower parenting effort in comparison with less masculine faces.
Men with highly masculine faces were judged more likely to get into physical fights, challenge their bosses, sleep with many women, cheat on their partners and knowingly hit on someone else's girlfriend. Those with more feminine faces were judged to be more likely to be good husbands, be great with children, work hard at their jobs even though they didn't like them, and be emotionally supportive in long-term relationships.
"Men picked the less masculine-looking men to accompany their girlfriends on a weekend trip to another city," Kruger said, "and both men and women would prefer the less masculine versions as dating partners for their daughters."
Together, the studies show that highly masculine faces are associated with riskier and more competitive behavior, higher mating effort and lower parenting effort in comparison with less masculine faces.
"Both men and women generally respond to men with high and low facial masculinity in ways that could be expected to benefit their own reproductive success," Kruger said. "While the more masculine-looking men may be good bets for mating, the more feminine-looking men may be better bets as parenting partners. More feminine features suggest compassion and kindness, indicating that men are able and willing to invest in a long-term relationship and in any potential children."
New Research On Why People Cheat
The probability of someone cheating during the course of a relationship varies between 40 and 76 percent. "It's very high," says Geneviève Beaulieu-Pelletier, PhD student at the Université de Montréal's Department of Psychology.
"These numbers indicate that even if we get married with the best of intentions things don't always turn out the way we plan. What interests me about infidelity is why people are willing to conduct themselves in ways that could be very damaging to them and to their relationship."
The student wanted to know if the type of commitment a person has with his or her loved ones is correlated to the desire of having extra-marital affairs. "The emotional attachment we have with others is modeled on the type of parenting received during childhood," she says.
According to psychologists, people with avoidant attachment styles are individuals uncomfortable with intimacy and are therefore more likely to multiply sexual encounters and cheat. But this has never been proved scientifically, which is what Beaulieu-Pelletier attempted to do in a series of four studies.
The first study was conducted on 145 students with an average age of 23. Some 68 percent had thought about cheating and 41 percent had actually cheated. Sexual satisfaction aside, the results indicated a strong correlation between infidelity and people with an avoidant attachment style.
The second study was conducted on 270 adults with an average age of 27. About 54 percent had thought about cheating and 39 percent had actually cheated. But the correlation is the same: people with an avoidant attachment style are more likely to cheat.
"Infidelity could be a regulatory emotional strategy used by people with an avoidant attachment style. The act of cheating helps them avoid commitment phobia, distances them from their partner, and helps them keep their space and freedom."
Both these studies were followed up by two other studies that asked about the motives for infidelity. The will to distance themselves from commitment and their partner was the number one reason cited.
Her studies revealed no differences between men and women. Just as many men and women had an avoidant attachment style and the correlation with infidelity is just as strong on both sides. "Contrary to popular belief, infidelity isn't more prevalent in men," she says.
http://www.umontreal.ca/english/index.htm
"These numbers indicate that even if we get married with the best of intentions things don't always turn out the way we plan. What interests me about infidelity is why people are willing to conduct themselves in ways that could be very damaging to them and to their relationship."
The student wanted to know if the type of commitment a person has with his or her loved ones is correlated to the desire of having extra-marital affairs. "The emotional attachment we have with others is modeled on the type of parenting received during childhood," she says.
According to psychologists, people with avoidant attachment styles are individuals uncomfortable with intimacy and are therefore more likely to multiply sexual encounters and cheat. But this has never been proved scientifically, which is what Beaulieu-Pelletier attempted to do in a series of four studies.
The first study was conducted on 145 students with an average age of 23. Some 68 percent had thought about cheating and 41 percent had actually cheated. Sexual satisfaction aside, the results indicated a strong correlation between infidelity and people with an avoidant attachment style.
The second study was conducted on 270 adults with an average age of 27. About 54 percent had thought about cheating and 39 percent had actually cheated. But the correlation is the same: people with an avoidant attachment style are more likely to cheat.
"Infidelity could be a regulatory emotional strategy used by people with an avoidant attachment style. The act of cheating helps them avoid commitment phobia, distances them from their partner, and helps them keep their space and freedom."
Both these studies were followed up by two other studies that asked about the motives for infidelity. The will to distance themselves from commitment and their partner was the number one reason cited.
Her studies revealed no differences between men and women. Just as many men and women had an avoidant attachment style and the correlation with infidelity is just as strong on both sides. "Contrary to popular belief, infidelity isn't more prevalent in men," she says.
http://www.umontreal.ca/english/index.htm
Gender Affects Perceptions Of Infidelity
A new study in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy explored how men and women perceive online and offline sexual and emotional infidelity. Results show that men felt sexual infidelity was more upsetting and women felt emotional infidelity was more upsetting.
Monica T. Whitty and Laura-Lee Quigley of Queen’s University Belfast surveyed 112 undergraduate students and asked them questions about sexual and emotional infidelity both offline and on the internet.
When given the choice, men were more upset by sexual infidelity and women were more upset by emotional infidelity.
Additionally, “men were more likely to believe that women have sex when in love and that women believe that men have sex even when they are not in love. It was not, however found that either men or women believe that having cybersex implied the other was also in love or that being in love online implied they were having cybersex.”
“Given the newness of the internet, the rules have still not been clearly defined as to what are acceptable online encounters,” the authors note. “Our results support a social-cognitive model as they demonstrate that social shifts have led men and women to think differently about sex and love.”
http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Brand/id-35.html
Monica T. Whitty and Laura-Lee Quigley of Queen’s University Belfast surveyed 112 undergraduate students and asked them questions about sexual and emotional infidelity both offline and on the internet.
When given the choice, men were more upset by sexual infidelity and women were more upset by emotional infidelity.
Additionally, “men were more likely to believe that women have sex when in love and that women believe that men have sex even when they are not in love. It was not, however found that either men or women believe that having cybersex implied the other was also in love or that being in love online implied they were having cybersex.”
“Given the newness of the internet, the rules have still not been clearly defined as to what are acceptable online encounters,” the authors note. “Our results support a social-cognitive model as they demonstrate that social shifts have led men and women to think differently about sex and love.”
http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Brand/id-35.html
High Hormone Levels In Women May Lead To Infidelity
Women with high levels of the sex hormone oestradiol may engage in opportunistic mating, according to a new study by psychology researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.
Doctoral candidate Kristina Durante and Assistant Professor of Psychology Norm Li published their findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biology Letters.
"The study offers further evidence that physiological mechanisms continue to play a major role in guiding women's sexual motivations and behavior," Durante said.
Durante and Li investigated the relationship between oestradiol, an ovarian hormone linked to fertility, and sexual motivation in a study of 52 female undergraduates not using contraception. Participants' ages ranged from 17 to 30 years old.
The researchers measured the participants' hormone levels at two points during each woman's ovulatory cycle and then asked them to rate their own physical attractiveness. Independent observers also rated the participants' physical attractiveness.
Participants also answered survey questions that measured their propensity to cheat on a partner.
The researchers found that a woman's oestradiol level was positively associated with self-perceived physical attractiveness. Women with a higher oestradiol level also reported a greater likelihood of flirting, kissing and having a serious affair (but not a one-night stand) with a new partner.
Oestradiol levels were negatively associated with a woman's satisfaction with her primary partner.
"Our findings show that highly fertile women are not easily satisfied by their long-term partners and are motivated to seek out more desirable partners," Durante explained. "However, that doesn't mean they're more likely to engage in casual sex. Instead, they adopt a strategy of serial monogamy."
http://www.utexas.edu/
Doctoral candidate Kristina Durante and Assistant Professor of Psychology Norm Li published their findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biology Letters.
"The study offers further evidence that physiological mechanisms continue to play a major role in guiding women's sexual motivations and behavior," Durante said.
Durante and Li investigated the relationship between oestradiol, an ovarian hormone linked to fertility, and sexual motivation in a study of 52 female undergraduates not using contraception. Participants' ages ranged from 17 to 30 years old.
The researchers measured the participants' hormone levels at two points during each woman's ovulatory cycle and then asked them to rate their own physical attractiveness. Independent observers also rated the participants' physical attractiveness.
Participants also answered survey questions that measured their propensity to cheat on a partner.
The researchers found that a woman's oestradiol level was positively associated with self-perceived physical attractiveness. Women with a higher oestradiol level also reported a greater likelihood of flirting, kissing and having a serious affair (but not a one-night stand) with a new partner.
Oestradiol levels were negatively associated with a woman's satisfaction with her primary partner.
"Our findings show that highly fertile women are not easily satisfied by their long-term partners and are motivated to seek out more desirable partners," Durante explained. "However, that doesn't mean they're more likely to engage in casual sex. Instead, they adopt a strategy of serial monogamy."
http://www.utexas.edu/
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