Gender differences in the motivational processing of facial beauty | Request PDF ArticleGender differences in the motivational processing of facial beauty May 2008 Learning and Motivation 39(2):136-145 DOI: 10.1016/j.lmot.2007.09.002 Source OAI Authors: Boaz Levy Boaz Levy This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet. Dan Ariely Dan Ariely This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet. Nina Mazar Nina Mazar This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet. Won Chi Won Chi This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet. Show all 6 authorsHide Request full-text PDFTo read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors. Request full-text Download citation Copy link Link copied Request full-text Download citation Copy link Link copied To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors. Citations (61) References (38) Abstract Gender may be involved in the motivational processing of facial beauty. This study applied a behavioral probe, known to activate brain motivational regions, to healthy heterosexual subjects. Matched samples of men and women were administered two tasks: (a) key pressing to change the viewing time of average or beautiful female or male facial images, and (b) rating the attractiveness of these images. Men expended more effort (via the key-press task) to extend the viewing time of the beautiful female faces. Women displayed similarly increased effort for beautiful male and female images, but the magnitude of this effort was substantially lower than that of men for beautiful females. Heterosexual facial attractiveness ratings were comparable in both groups. These findings demonstrate heterosexual specificity of facial motivational targets for men, but not for women. Moreover, heightened drive for the pursuit of heterosexual beauty in the face of regular valuational assessments, displayed by men, suggests a gender-specific incentive sensitization phenomenon. Discover the world's research 20+ million members 135+ million publications 700k+ research projects Join for free No full-text available To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors. Request full-text PDF Citations (61) References (38) ... However, none of the above studies found differences in behavioral attractiveness ratings between male and female faces or between men and women. In an attempt to further pursue the suggestion by Aharon et al. (2001) that a preferred-sex bias occurs at a level of wanting rather than liking, several research groups (Hayden et al., 2007;Levy et al., 2008) conducted behavioral studies including both, attractiveness ratings and work-per-view-tasks. While men and women showed little difference in attractiveness ratings of opposite-sex faces, men worked significantly harder (Hayden et al., 2007;Levy et al., 2008), and were significantly more willing to exchange money (Hayden et al., 2007) to extend the viewing time of an opposite-sex face than women. ... ... In an attempt to further pursue the suggestion by Aharon et al. (2001) that a preferred-sex bias occurs at a level of wanting rather than liking, several research groups (Hayden et al., 2007;Levy et al., 2008) conducted behavioral studies including both, attractiveness ratings and work-per-view-tasks. While men and women showed little difference in attractiveness ratings of opposite-sex faces, men worked significantly harder (Hayden et al., 2007;Levy et al., 2008), and were significantly more willing to exchange money (Hayden et al., 2007) to extend the viewing time of an opposite-sex face than women. ... ... However, all of the above studies included facial beauty as modulating factor, hereby blurring the boundary between sexual preference and aesthetic valuation. Also, previous studies neglected the potential influence of relationship status and steroid hormone levels (except Levy et al., 2008) on mating-related reward processing. Studies on face processing have shown that being in a relationship alters women's preferences for masculinity in a man's face (Little et al., 2002). ... Neural activation during anticipation of opposite-sex and same-sex faces in heterosexual men and women Article Nov 2012 NeuroImage Katja N Spreckelmeyer Lena Rademacher Frieder Michel Paulus Gerhard Gründer Psychobiological accounts of face processing predict that greater salience is attributed to faces matching a viewer's sexual preference than to faces that do not. However, behaviorally, this effect could only be demonstrated in tasks assessing reward 'wanting' (e.g. work-per-view-tasks) but not in tasks assessing 'liking' (e.g. facial attractiveness ratings), and has been found to be more pronounced in heterosexual men than women, especially with regard to very attractive faces. Here, we addressed the question if sex-differences at the level of 'wanting' persist if participants are uninformed about the attractiveness of an anticipated male or female face. Seventeen heterosexual men and 13 heterosexual women (all single) participated in a social incentive delay task (SID). Participants were required to react on simple graphical cues in order to view a smiling face. Cues provided a priori information on the level of smile intensity (low/ medium/ high) as well as sex of the face (male/ female). A significant interaction of sex-of-face and sex-of-participant was observed in a priori defined regions of interest in the brain reward system (including ventral tegmental area, nucleus accumbens and ventromedial prefrontal cortex), reflecting enhanced activation to cues signaling opposite-sex faces relative to same-sex faces in both, men and women. Women additionally recruited the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) during processing of opposite- vs. same-sex cues, suggesting stronger incorporation of social cognition processes in women than men. The findings speak against a general male bias for opposite-sex faces. Instead they provide preliminary evidence that men and women recruit different brain circuits during reward value assessment of facial stimuli. View Show abstract ... However, there is little research on willingness to expend effort to engage with infant stimuli ( " wanting " ). Prior research on the incentive value of sex-linked stimuli has focused on effort expended to view attractive adult faces (e.g., Levy et al., 2008), but a similar sex difference in incentive value may account for the observed sex difference in interest in infants (Maestripieri, 1999; Best & Williams, 2001). One recent study examined this possibility but found no sex difference in the effort expended to view infant faces (Parsons, Young, Kumari, Stein, & Kringelbach, 2011). ... ... Pictures of infant faces, kittens, and dolls were included in a set of images displayed in the center of the computer screen. Similar to the methods of the earlier investigation (Levy et al., 2008), an on-screen timer indicated the amount of viewing time remaining for each picture. The set of images included three images of infants' faces, two images of kittens' faces, and two images of dolls. ... ... Key presses in this study are considered indicative of " wanting " in that they demonstrate motivated behavior to either shorten or extend viewing of images of a certain type. Similar to the method used in Levy et al. (2008), net key press results for each category of stimuli were analyzed using a mixed design GLM with sex as the between-subjects factor and stimulus type (infant, doll, kitten) as the within-subjects factor. Because there were individual differences in the total number of key presses during the experiment, number of total presses was included as a covariate. ... Motivational value and salience of images of infants Article Aug 2013 EVOL HUM BEHAV Nora E. Charles Gerianne Alexander Janet Saenz Researchers have typically reported relatively greater preferences for infants among females than among males, though this varies somewhat across samples and age groups. The mechanism by which this sex difference occurs is not well understood and many studies rely on participants' self-reported preferences rather than measuring motivated behavior or patterns of visual attention directly. The present research consists of two independent studies investigating attention to infants. The aim of these studies was to extend research on the characteristics associated with interest in infants by measuring motivation to view infant faces (Study 1) and visual attention to infants in a complex visual scene (Study 2). In Study 1, participants controlled the length of viewing time for different images. Women demonstrated motivation to extend viewing of infants. Men showed the opposite pattern, working to decrease the length of time they viewed infants. In Study 2, participants were shown complex scenes that contained infants. Patterns of visual attention were measured using eye-tracking technology. Infants did not receive a particularly high proportion of fixations from either sex. However, there were relationships between gender-linked traits, such as digit ratio and self-reported interest in infants, and the percentage of fixations on infants. Additionally, participants who reported being in a romantic relationship demonstrated greater interest in infants. This suggests the long-reported sex difference in interest in infants may relate more to current life circumstances and gender linked traits than an overwhelming tendency among all members of a sex. View Show abstract ... For example, brain regions involved in the general processing of rewards, such as the nucleus accumbens and orbitofrontal cortex [4], respond more strongly when viewing physically attractive faces than they do when viewing physically unattractive faces [1,3]. Studies that have used key-press tasks to assess the motivational salience of faces (i.e., the extent to which participants will expend effort to alter the viewing time for a face) have also reported that participants will expend more effort to look longer at more attractive faces [5][6][7][8]. Some studies of heterosexual participants have reported that this effect of attractiveness on the motivational salience of faces is greater when viewing opposite-sex than own-sex faces [7,9], while others have reported this opposite-sex bias for male, but not female, participants [6], or have not observed an oppositesex bias [8]. ... ... Studies that have used key-press tasks to assess the motivational salience of faces (i.e., the extent to which participants will expend effort to alter the viewing time for a face) have also reported that participants will expend more effort to look longer at more attractive faces [5][6][7][8]. Some studies of heterosexual participants have reported that this effect of attractiveness on the motivational salience of faces is greater when viewing opposite-sex than own-sex faces [7,9], while others have reported this opposite-sex bias for male, but not female, participants [6], or have not observed an oppositesex bias [8]. ... ... That male macaques find more dominant conspecifics' faces more rewarding [10] suggests that the dominance component of social judgments of faces might also be associated with the motivational salience of faces in humans. This would be noteworthy because the motivational salience of faces is thought to drive the link between perceptual judgments and behavioral responses [5][6][7] and such results would suggest that the motivational salience of faces is not solely a consequence of their perceived valence. ... The Motivational Salience of Faces Is Related to Both Their Valence and Dominance Article Full-text available Aug 2016 PLOS ONE Hongyi Wang Amanda C Hahn Lisa M DeBruine Benedict C Jones Both behavioral and neural measures of the motivational salience of faces are positively correlated with their physical attractiveness. Whether physical characteristics other than attractiveness contribute to the motivational salience of faces is not known, however. Research with male macaques recently showed that more dominant macaques’ faces hold greater motivational salience. Here we investigated whether dominance also contributes to the motivational salience of faces in human participants. Principal component analysis of third-party ratings of faces for multiple traits revealed two orthogonal components. The first component (“valence”) was highly correlated with rated trustworthiness and attractiveness. The second component (“dominance”) was highly correlated with rated dominance and aggressiveness. Importantly, both components were positively and independently related to the motivational salience of faces, as assessed from responses on a standard key-press task. These results show that at least two dissociable components underpin the motivational salience of faces in humans and present new evidence for similarities in how humans and non-human primates respond to facial cues of dominance. View Show abstract ... responses to images of preferred-sex and non-preferred-sex individuals in heterosexual women, evidence for this pattern of results in studies using key-press tasks is more mixed. For example, Levy et al. (2008) found that heterosexual men, but not heterosexual women, exerted more effort to view images of preferred-sex faces than images of non-preferred-sex faces. By contrast, Hahn, Xiao, Sprengelmeyer, and Perrett (2013) found that both heterosexual men and women exerted more effort to view images of preferred-sex faces than of nonpreferred-sex faces. ... ... By contrast, Hahn, Xiao, Sprengelmeyer, and Perrett (2013) found that both heterosexual men and women exerted more effort to view images of preferred-sex faces than of nonpreferred-sex faces. Both Levy et al. (2008) and Hahn et al. (2013) also presented evidence that the degree of specificity observed in key-press responses to preferred-sex and non-preferred-sex faces can be influenced by the physical attractiveness of the individuals presented. The tendency for heterosexual men in Levy et al.'s study and heterosexual men and heterosexual women in Hahn et al.'s study to exert more effort to view preferred-sex faces than non-preferred-sex faces was greater for images of physically attractive individuals than for images of relatively unattractive individuals. ... ... The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effects of participant sexual orientation (homosexual vs. heterosexual), participant sex (male vs. female), image sex (preferred-sex vs. non-preferred-sex), and the physical attractiveness of the individual shown in the image on the reward value of faces. Reward value was assessed using a standard key-press task adapted from those used previously to explore the effects of image sex and physical attractiveness in studies of the reward value of faces in heterosexual participants (Aharon et al., 2001; Hahn et al., 2013; Levy et al., 2008). Given that several lines of evidence suggest that heterosexual women show weaker sex-specific responses to preferred-sex versus non-preferred-sex individuals, we might expect sex-specific responses to faces to be weaker (or even absent) in heterosexual women compared with heterosexual men, homosexual men, or homosexual women. ... Sex-Specificity in the Reward Value of Facial Attractiveness Article Apr 2015 Arch Sex Behav Lisa M DeBruine Amanda C Hahn Claire I. Fisher Benedict C Jones Studies of the sex-specificity of sexual arousal in adults (i.e., the tendency to respond more strongly to preferred-sex individuals than non-preferred sex individuals) have suggested that heterosexual men, homosexual men, and homosexual women show stronger sex-specific responses than do heterosexual women. Evidence for a similar pattern of results in studies investigating the reward value of faces is equivocal. Consequently, we investigated the effects of (1) sexual orientation (homosexual vs. heterosexual), (2) sex (male vs. female), (3) image sex (preferred-sex vs. non-preferred-sex), and (4) the physical attractiveness of the individual shown in the image on the reward value of faces. Participants were 130 heterosexual men, 130 homosexual men, 130 heterosexual women, and 130 homosexual women. The reward value of faces was assessed using a standard key-press task. Multilevel modeling of responses indicated that images of preferred-sex individuals were more rewarding than images of non-preferred-sex individuals and that this preferred-sex bias was particularly pronounced when more physically attractive faces were presented. These effects were not qualified by interactions involving either the sexual orientation or the sex of our participants, however, suggesting that the preferred-sex bias in the reward value of faces is similar in heterosexual men, homosexual men, heterosexual women, and homosexual women. View Show abstract ... The approach/avoidance task (Kim et al., 2010) gauged to what extent subjects would actively keypress to increase or decrease the amount of time they were exposed to face stimuli belonging to four categories: non-model male, nonmodel female, model male, and model female faces (Aharon et al., 2001). This validated task (Aharon et al., 2001;Elman et al., 2005;Strauss et al., 2005;Levy et al., 2008;Perlis et al., 2008;Gasic et al., 2009;Yamamoto et al., 2009;Kim et al., 2010;Viswanathan et al., 2015) quantified the effort subjects were willing to expend to approach or avoid each face stimulus. We then computed metrics that quantified the magnitude and predictability of the participants' keypress behavior. ... ... Subjects were told that they would be exposed to a series of pictures that would change every 8 s ( Figure 1A) if they pressed no keys. As published previously (Aharon et al., 2001;Elman et al., 2005;Strauss et al., 2005;Levy et al., 2008;Makris et al., 2008;Perlis et al., 2008; FIGURE 1 | Experimental paradigms for approach/avoidance and signal detection tasks. (A) A schema for the keypress paradigm shows, at top, raster plots of keypressing effects on face viewing time (y-axis) as blue curves going up or down from a default viewing time of 6 s. ... ... Gasic et al., 2009;Yamamoto et al., 2009;Kim et al., 2010;Lee et al., 2015;Viswanathan et al., 2015), each experimental stimulus would be initially presented for 0.2 s and replaced by a fixation point for 1.8 s (the "decision block"), until the face reappeared at 2 s and the subject was given the option to increase or decrease the viewing time via keypressing the "judgment block"). The relationship between the number of keypresses made by the subject to approach or avoid the face stimuli and the updated viewing time followed previous methods, and utilized the following resistive function (Aharon et al., 2001;Elman et al., 2005;Strauss et al., 2005;Levy et al., 2008;Makris et al., 2008;Perlis et al., 2008;Gasic et al., 2009;Yamamoto et al., 2009;Kim et al., 2010;Lee et al., 2015;Viswanathan et al., 2015): ... A Quantitative Relationship between Signal Detection in Attention and Approach/Avoidance Behavior Article Full-text available Feb 2017 John P. Sheppard Byoung Woo Kim Vijay Viswanathan Hans Breiter This study examines how the domains of reward and attention, which are often studied as independent processes, in fact interact at a systems level. We operationalize divided attention with a continuous performance task and variables from signal detection theory (SDT), and reward/aversion with a keypress task measuring approach/avoidance in the framework of relative preference theory (RPT). Independent experiments with the same subjects showed a significant association between one SDT and two RPT variables, visualized as a three-dimensional structure. Holding one of these three variables constant, further showed a significant relationship between a loss aversion-like metric from the approach/avoidance task, and the response bias observed during the divided attention task. These results indicate that a more liberal response bias under signal detection (i.e., a higher tolerance for noise, resulting in a greater proportion of false alarms) is associated with higher “loss aversion.” Furthermore, our functional model suggests a mechanism for processing constraints with divided attention and reward/aversion. Together, our results argue for a systematic relationship between divided attention and reward/aversion processing in humans. View Show abstract ... The motivational value of facial beauty has been evidenced both by laboratory-based research (e.g., Levy et al., 2008) and by numerous neuroimaging studies (e.g., Aharon et al., 2001;Kampe et al., 2001;O'Doherty et al., 2003;Kranz and Ishai, 2006;Ishai, 2007). More specifically, functional brain imaging studies have shown that facial beauty evokes activation in brain regions that are involved in stimulus-reward associations (e.g., in the orbitofrontal cortex or the ventral striatum) and thus form key structures that support affect and emotion. ... ... In a similar vein, Levy et al.'s (2008) study, which used laboratory performance tasks, showed that facial beauty attracts attention and has high incentive value. Levy et al. (2008) examined the effect of gender on the processing of facial beauty by asking male and female participants to control the viewing time of average or beautiful faces of men and women, as well as to rate their attractiveness. ... ... In a similar vein, Levy et al.'s (2008) study, which used laboratory performance tasks, showed that facial beauty attracts attention and has high incentive value. Levy et al. (2008) examined the effect of gender on the processing of facial beauty by asking male and female participants to control the viewing time of average or beautiful faces of men and women, as well as to rate their attractiveness. The two groups of participants gave similar ratings of heterosexual facial attractiveness. ... Facial beauty affects implicit and explicit learning of men and women differently Article Full-text available Aug 2015 Eleni Ziori Zoltan Dienes The present work explores the unconscious and/or conscious nature of learning attractive faces of same and opposite sex, that is, of stimuli that experimental and neuroimaging research has shown to be rewarding and thus highly motivating. To this end, we examined performance of men and women while classifying strings of average and attractive faces for grammaticality in the experimental task of artificial grammar learning (AGL), which reflects both conscious and unconscious processes. Subjective measures were used to assess participants' conscious and unconscious knowledge. It was found that female attractiveness impaired performance in male participants. In particular, male participants demonstrated the lowest accuracy while classifying beautiful faces of women. Conversely, female attractiveness facilitated performance in female participants. The pattern was similar for conscious and unconscious knowledge. Presumably, objects with high incentive salience, as are beautiful faces, captured resources, which were used in task relevant versus task irrelevant ways by women versus men. The present findings shed light on the relation of conscious and unconscious processing with affective and reward-related stimuli, as well as on gender differences underlying this relation. View Show abstract ... In each test session, participants completed two versions of a standard key-press task, similar to those used to assess the motivational salience of faces in previous studies (Aharon et al., 2001;Levy et al., 2008;Hahn et al., 2013). Following Aharon et al. (2001) and Levy et al. (2008), and because the faces had been rated in single-sex blocks (see Section 2.2), male and female faces were presented in separate blocks of trials. ... ... In each test session, participants completed two versions of a standard key-press task, similar to those used to assess the motivational salience of faces in previous studies (Aharon et al., 2001;Levy et al., 2008;Hahn et al., 2013). Following Aharon et al. (2001) and Levy et al. (2008), and because the faces had been rated in single-sex blocks (see Section 2.2), male and female faces were presented in separate blocks of trials. In one version of the task (male face version), the 50 male faces described in Section 2.2 were presented in a fully randomized order. ... ... Following previous studies of the motivational salience of faces (Aharon et al., 2001;Levy et al., 2008;Hahn et al., 2013), key-press scores for each face were calculated by subtracting the number of key presses made to decrease viewing time from those made to increase viewing time. These scores were calculated separately for each participant and for each test session and served as the dependent variable in our analyses (see Section 3). ... Women's hormone levels modulate the motivational salience of facial attractiveness and sexual dimorphism Article Sep 2014 PSYCHONEUROENDOCRINO Hongyi Wang Claire I. Fisher Benedict C Jones Amanda C Hahn View ... In Study 2, we used a standard key-press task (Aharon et al., 2001;, 2015Levy et al., 2008;Wang, Hahn, Fisher, DeBruine, & Jones, 2014) to assess the reward value of images of men's faces in partnered and unpartnered women. In this task, participants can control the length of time for which they view faces by repeatedly pressing keys to either increase or decrease the viewing time (Aharon et al., 2001;Hahn et al., 2014Hahn et al., , 2015Levy et al., 2008;Wang et al., 2014). ... ... In Study 2, we used a standard key-press task (Aharon et al., 2001;, 2015Levy et al., 2008;Wang, Hahn, Fisher, DeBruine, & Jones, 2014) to assess the reward value of images of men's faces in partnered and unpartnered women. In this task, participants can control the length of time for which they view faces by repeatedly pressing keys to either increase or decrease the viewing time (Aharon et al., 2001;Hahn et al., 2014Hahn et al., , 2015Levy et al., 2008;Wang et al., 2014). Responses on this type of key-press task are a better predictor of neural measures of the reward value and motivational salience of face images than attractiveness ratings (Aharon et al., 2001). ... ... The same face stimuli were used in both studies. Previous research has found that more attractive male faces have greater reward value to women (Hahn et al., , 2015Levy et al., 2008;Wang et al., 2014). However, this work has not considered the possible effects of women's partnership status. ... Do partnered women discriminate men's faces less along the attractiveness dimension? Article Full-text available Aug 2016 PERS INDIV DIFFER Hongyi Wang Amanda C Hahn Lisa M DeBruine Benedict C Jones Romantic relationships can have positive effects on health and reproductive fitness. Given that attractive potential alternative mates can pose a threat to romantic relationships, some researchers have proposed that partnered individuals discriminate opposite-sex individuals less along the physical attractiveness dimension than do unpartnered individuals. This effect is proposed to devalue attractive (i.e., high quality) alternative mates and help maintain romantic relationships. Here we investigated this issue by comparing the effects of men's attractiveness on partnered and unpartnered women's performance on two response measures for which attractiveness is known to be important: memory for face photographs (Study 1) and the reward value of faces (Study 2). Consistent with previous research, women's memory was poorer for face photographs of more attractive men (Study 1) and more attractive men's faces were more rewarding (Study 2). However, in neither study were these effects of attractiveness modulated by women's partnership status or partnered women's reported commitment to or happiness with their romantic relationship. These results do not support the proposal that partnered women discriminate potential alternative mates along the physical attractiveness dimension less than do unpartnered women. View Show abstract ... Behavioral work utilizing the key-press paradigm has provided some evidence for sex differences in response to facial attractiveness. Both men and women will exert greater effort to view attractive than unattractive faces (Aharon et al., 2001;Dai et al., 2010;Hahn et al., 2013b;Iaria et al., 2008;Levy et al., 2008) and there is some evidence that both sexes exert greater effort for opposite-sex faces than same-sex faces overall (Hahn et al., 2013b;Iaria et al., 2008). Same-sex faces in general, however, may hold greater incentive salience among women than men (Dai et al., 2010;Hahn et al., 2013b;Iaria et al., 2008;Levy et al., 2008), although attractiveness does impact on the incentive salience of both samesex and opposite-sex faces (e.g., Dai et al., 2010;Elman et al., 2005). ... ... Both men and women will exert greater effort to view attractive than unattractive faces (Aharon et al., 2001;Dai et al., 2010;Hahn et al., 2013b;Iaria et al., 2008;Levy et al., 2008) and there is some evidence that both sexes exert greater effort for opposite-sex faces than same-sex faces overall (Hahn et al., 2013b;Iaria et al., 2008). Same-sex faces in general, however, may hold greater incentive salience among women than men (Dai et al., 2010;Hahn et al., 2013b;Iaria et al., 2008;Levy et al., 2008), although attractiveness does impact on the incentive salience of both samesex and opposite-sex faces (e.g., Dai et al., 2010;Elman et al., 2005). ... Neural and behavioral responses to attractiveness in adult and infant faces Article Oct 2014 NEUROSCI BIOBEHAV R Amanda C Hahn David I Perrett View ... Although racial 34 It can be assumed from this data, that Laypeople are either the most critical at assessing facial esthetics or that facial esthetics does not depend on any one single feature. 35 This data indicates that subject's background status does not relate to an increased ability to detect changes in LFH in models with OVD increases up to 5.0 mm. These results therefore fail to reject the null hypothesis. ... ... and gender35 preferences have been validated by previous research in psychology, most previous dental literature in facial esthetics has been conducted regionally and with sizable gender and racial preferences; this affects sample homogeneity and may contribute biases in ratings.Data from Part B is as follows. First, ratings of facial esthetics were not influenced by the alterations of OVD used here. ... Changes in Facial Esthetics and Lower Facial Height with Increases in Occlusal Vertical Dimension in Dentate Models Article Jun 2013 Orenstein, Noah Philip, DMD Materials and Methods: Twenty models with class I occlusion of White, Black, Asian, and Asian-Indian racial background had mandibular overlays of 2mm, 3mm, 4mm, and 5mm thicknesses fabricated. Each model had clinical measurements made from pro-nasale to soft tissue menton for each of the following OVD above their normal bite 0mm, 2mm, 3mm, 4mm, and 5mm. The same models described above had frontal and profile facial digital images recorded in maximum intercuspation (MIP) and wearing each of the four mandibular overlays. The digital images of 8 models were selected and displayed to 60 judges (30 laypeople, 15 general dentists, and 15 prosthodontists.) Using a VAS, all subjects rated the esthetics of each model at each OVD. Results: Objectively, a systematic increase of 1.0mm in OVD reflected an increase of LFH by 0.63; this increase in LFH was uncorrelated with OVD (r=.123; p >.20). Subjectively, ratings of facial esthetics, evaluated across judges with different background statuses (layperson, general dentist, prosthodontist), were not affected (p>0.70) up to 5.0mm above MIP. When model and subject gender were the same (p > 0.80) ratings of facial esthetics were not correlated, but when model and subject race were the same (p < .01) ratings were affected. Conclusion: Objectively, increased OVD did not correlated to similar increases in LFH. Subjectively, judges could not detect a difference in facial esthetics with changes up to 5.0mm above MIP irrespective of background status. Interactions between model and subject gender affected ratings, but interactions between model and subject race were uncorrelated. View Show abstract ... Evolutionary social psychology has suggested that facial attractiveness indicates the reproductive capacities and genetic fitness of potential mates [22,45]. Although women are also intrinsically attracted to beauty, research observed that men tend to value physical attractiveness more highly than women do [33]. For instance, a study showed that men are willing to wait longer, exchange more money, and devote more effort than females for the opportunity to look at attractive opposite-sex faces [27]. ... ... Given that beauty is positively associated with social competence and negatively with neediness, women would perceive less neediness and empathy toward more attractive recipients and would give less to them than less attractive recipients. In contrast, compared with women, men are more sensitive, attentive, and tend to assign higher values to attractive targets, especially female targets [27,33]. As a consequence, men tend to positively react to more attractive females than less attractive females [4,30]. ... The Role of Beauty in Donation Crowdfunding Conference Paper Jan 2019 Jooyoung Park Keongtae Kim View ... It biases our perception of direct eye contact (Kloth et al., 2011), and induces a pleasurable perceptual experience. Attractiveness alters our behavior, so that we look longer at attractive faces (Aharon et al., 2001;Levy et al., 2008) in social scenes (Leder et al., 2010;Mitrovic et al., 2016). Attractive faces may be looked at longer because looking at them is rewarding and they elicit positive emotions (Hayden et al., 2007). ... ... Among other benefits, facial attractiveness has a rewarding value. For example, we are biased to perceive direct eye contact in attractive faces (Kloth et al., 2011) and receive reward when looking at attractive faces (Aharon et al., 2001;Levy et al., 2008). This reward might indicate potential approach behavior in social interactions. ... Combined Effects of Gaze and Orientation of Faces on Person Judgments in Social Situations Article Full-text available Feb 2017 Raphaela Kaisler Helmut Leder In social situations, faces of others can vary simultaneously in gaze and orientation. How these variations affect different kinds of social judgments, such as attractiveness or trustworthiness, is only partly understood. Therefore, we studied how different gaze directions, head angles, but also levels of facial attractiveness affect perceived attractiveness and trustworthiness. We always presented pairs of faces – either two average attractive faces or a highly attractive together with a less attractive face. We also varied gaze and head angles showing faces in three different orientations, front, three-quarter and profile view. In Experiment 1 (N = 62), participants rated averted gaze in three-quarter views as more attractive than in front and profile views, and evaluated faces with direct gaze in front views as most trustworthy. Moreover, faces that were being looked at by another face were seen as more attractive. Independent of the head orientation or gaze direction, highly attractive faces were rated as more attractive and more trustworthy. In Experiment 2 (N = 54), we found that the three-quarter advantage vanished when the second face was blurred during judgments, which demonstrates the importance of the presence of another person-as in a triadic social situation-as well as the importance of their visible gaze. The findings emphasize that social evaluations such as trustworthiness are unaffected by the esthetic advantage of three-quarter views of two average attractive faces, and that the effect of a faces’ attractiveness is more powerful than the more subtle effects of gaze and orientations. View Show abstract ... The females were very keen to use sexual gestures such as dancing and blowing kisses. This is somewhat at odds with a study by Levya et al. (2008) who found in a study of responses to facial beauty that 'men expended substantially greater motivational effort for viewing beautiful female images than women for beautiful males'. The attractive female received the most attention from the males. ... An investigation into how avatar appearance can affect interactions in a virtual world Article Full-text available Jan 2009 Leonie O'Brien John Stanley Murnane In the virtual world of Second Life, participants create their own avatar to represent them. From an initial template, this avatar can be physically manipulated in multiple ways to individualise its look and behaviour. This pilot study reports on the social experience of a male and female avatar in a controlled environment. Each avatar had an 'attractive' and 'unattractive' representation. In line with similar studies in real life, we found that attractive people are more likely to be included in conversations and interactions in a virtual online environment and are more likely to be offered friendship than their more unattractive counterparts, but the more interesting questions involved deeper interactions related to deliberate 'unattractiveness' and its possible motives. View Show abstract ... In short, preferences do not necessarily lead to mating, and mating may not occur with the preferred mate. Further, recent studies investigating preference ratings and behavioural measures in humans have shown that people expend more effort for opposite sex faces that elicit responses in brain regions associated with reward, despite rating same sex faces as equally attractive (AHARON et al. 2001;LEVY et al. 2008). That is, 'liking' can be dissociated from 'wanting' (ROB-INSON and BERRIDGE 2000). ... Multiple signals in human mate selection: A review and framework for integrating facial and vocal signals Article Full-text available Jun 2009 Timothy Wells Andrew K Dunn Mark J.T. Sergeant Mark Davies Evolutionary adaptation in variable environments is likely to give rise to several signals that can be used to identify a suitable mate in multisensory organisms. The presence of multiple signals for sexual selection could be advantageous, limiting the chance of mating with a suboptimal partner and avoiding the costs of inferior progeny. Despite extensive research into isolated signals of attractiveness, the amalgamation of multiple signals in sexual selection is poorly understood, particularly in humans. Inferences regarding both the function and importance of such signals are therefore tentative unless the effects are considered together. Here, the literature regarding two evolved signals of attraction (cf. faces and voices) is reviewed in relation to a framework ( Candolin 2003) for signal integration. It is argued that the functional nature of signals of attractiveness would be better studied through manipulation and experimentation with both single and multiple signals. Considering the prevalence of traits in relation to their combined effects may well provide a more fruitful and informative approach to human mate selection. View Show abstract ... AHARON et al. (2001) stwierdzili, że mężczyźni dają wysokie oceny atrakcyjności niektórym twarzom kobiet i niektórym twarzom mężczyzn, ale jedynie w stosunku do atrakcyjnych twarzy kobiet mężczyzna zabiega o to, by je dłużej oglądać (w tym eksperymencie: wielokrotne naciskanie klawisza na klawiaturze powodowało dłuższe wyświetlanie twarzy na ekranie). LEVY et al. (2008) umożliwili badanym zarówno skracanie jak i wydłużanie czasu prezentacji twarzy i uzyskali następujące wyniki: (i) obie płcie nieco skracają czas dla twarzy (obu płci) o przeciętnej atrakcyjności, a silnie -dla twarzy nieatrakcyjnych, (ii) kobiety wydłużają czas dla atrakcyjnych twarzy obu płci, (iii) mężczyźni silnie wydłużają czas dla atrakcyjnych twarzy kobiecych, ale skracają dla atrakcyjnych twarzy męskich. Również w trakcie standardowych badań nad AtrTw, sędziowie obu płci zdecydowanie dłużej patrzą na atrakcyjną twarz zanim dokonają jej oceny niż na twarz nieatrakcyjną (SHIMOJO et al. 2003, HONEKOPP 2006 oraz na twarz kobiety niż mężczyzny (FISHER 2004). ... Atrakcyjność twarzy (2009) Article Full-text available Jan 2009 Krzysztof Kościński Abstrakt: Atrakcyjność twarzy była przedmiotem rozważań już w starożytności, ale naukowe badania nad nią pochodzą głównie z ostatniego ćwierćwiecza. Badania te dowiodły, że istnieje szereg, często mierzalnych, własności twarzy, które wpływają atrakcyjności twarzy. Przeciętność proporcji oraz symetria twarzy są preferowane przypuszczalnie dlatego, że sygnalizują zdrowie genetyczne i wysoką tzw. stabilność rozwojową. Mężczyźni preferują silnie sfeminizowane twarze kobiet, ponieważ oznaczają one wysoki stosunek poziomu estrogenu do testosteronu, a zatem sprawność reprodukcyjną kobiety. Natomiast kobiety preferują umiarkowany stopień maskulinizacji twarzy mężczyzn, ponieważ znaczna maskulinizacja sygnalizuje wysoki poziom testosteronu, a zatem słabo wykształcone pro-rodzinne cechy osobowości. Z podobnych przyczyn mężczyźni preferują brak owłosienia twarzy kobiet, a kobiece preferencje dla zarostu twarzy mężczyzn są niejednolite. Czysta (tzn. pozbawiona brodawek itp.) skóra twarzy jest atrakcyjna u obu płci. Ponadto mężczyźni preferują u kobiet skórę jasną i gładką (tzn. bez zmarszczek). Korzystny wpływ na atrakcyjność twarzy ma też pozytywny wyraz twarzy. Wiele z wyżej wymienionych cech (przede wszystkim stan skóry i proporcje twarzy) wpływa na postrzegany wiek, a ten z kolei wpływa na atrakcyjność twarzy. Szczególnie mężczyźni silnie preferują młodo wyglądające twarze kobiet. Badania pokazują, że preferencje względem twarzy w dużej mierze są kryteriami rozpoznawania wartościowych, z reprodukcyjnego punktu widzenia, partnerów. Preferencje te mają zatem charakter adaptacji, choć w niektórych przypadkach istotną rolę mogą także odgrywać nie-adaptacyjne mechanizmy związane z ogólnymi sposobami funkcjonowania mózgu. W niniejszej pracy dużo miejsca poświęcono wewnątrz-i międzypopulacyjnej zmienności preferencji, związkowi pomiędzy atrakcyjnością twarzy a wartością partnerską, biologicznym i społecznym konsekwencjom atrakcyjności oraz wiarygodności adaptacyjnego rozumienia preferencji względem twarzy. Wyniki badań skłaniają do następujących wniosków: (1) Istnieje wiele czynników przyczyniających się do międzyosobniczej zmienności postrzegania atrakcyjności twarzy, np. wiek, płeć, jakość biologiczna, stan fizjologiczny, osobowość i sytuacja życiowa osoby oceniającej twarze, a także poprzednio oglądane twarze, podobieństwo pomiędzy ocenianą twarzą a twarzą sędziego, oraz znajomość właściciela twarzy i wiedza o nim. (2) Międzypopulacyjne podobieństwo w postrzeganiu atrakcyjności twarzy jest znaczne i ma podłoże zarówno biologiczne jak i kulturowe. (3) Osoby o atrakcyjnych twarzach mają więcej partnerów seksualnych, biorą ślub młodszym wieku i rzadziej pozostają starymi pannami / kawalerami. Z tych powodów mają oni większy sukces reprodukcyjny niż osoby nieatrakcyjne. (4) Atrakcyjność twarzy jest rzetelnym wskaźnikiem jakości biologicznej jej właściciela, np. odporności na pasożyty, sprawności fizycznej, sprawności reprodukcyjnej, długowieczności, inteligencji, zdrowia psychicznego, a także mniejszej liczby mutacji. (5) Całościowo, badania empiryczne potwierdzają tezę, że preferencje w odniesieniu do twarzy są biologicznymi adaptacjami, to znaczy, wykształciły się one na drodze ewolucji biologicznej, ponieważ pomagały w wyborze partnera o dobrych genach lub pożądanej osobowości. Słowa kluczowe: atrakcyjność twarzy, atrakcyjność fizyczna, preferencje estetyczne, twarz człowieka, piękno. View Show abstract ... Additional perspectives entail studies in healthy participants and patients with HSDD investigating sex differences in the beautyattractiveness dissociation. Indeed, as men give more credit to physical appearance when choosing mates, the motivational value of a beautiful female face may be higher [37] and beauty-attractiveness dissociation could thus be less marked in men than in women. It could have implications for the management of HSDD as cognitive characteristics of person perception in men and women with hypoactive sexual desire might thus differ. ... Perception of Men's Beauty and Attractiveness by Women with Low Sexual Desire Article Dec 2014 J Sex Med Camille Ferdenzi Sylvain Delplanque Olga Vorontsova-Wenger David Sander IntroductionDespite the high prevalence of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD), especially among women, this sexual disorder remains poorly understood. Among the multiple factors possibly involved in HSDD, particularities in the cognitive evaluations of social stimuli need to be better characterized. Especially, beauty and attractiveness judgments, two dimensions of interpersonal perception that are related but differ on their underlying motivational aspects, may vary according to the level of sexual desire.AimThe main goal of this study was to investigate whether women with and without HSDD differ in their evaluations of beauty and attractiveness of men's faces and voices.Methods Young women from the general population (controls, n = 16) and with HSDD (patients, n = 16) took part in the study. They were presented with a series of neutral/nonerotic voices and faces of young men from the GEneva Faces And Voices database.Main Outcome MeasuresRatings of beauty (i.e., assessments of aesthetic pleasure) and of attractiveness (i.e., assessments of the personal propensity to feel attracted to someone) and the frequency to which the participants pressed a key to see or listen to each stimulus again were the main outcome measures.ResultsRatings of attractiveness were lower than ratings of beauty in both groups of women. The dissociation between beauty and attractiveness was larger in women with HSDD than in control participants. Patients gave lower attractiveness ratings than the controls and replayed the stimuli significantly less often.Conclusion These results suggest that women with HSDD are characterized by specific alterations of the motivational component of men's perception, very early in the process of interpersonal relationships. Our findings have significant implications, both in better understanding the specific cognitive processes underlying hypoactive sexual desire and more largely the evaluative processes involved in human mate choice. Ferdenzi C, Delplanque S, Vorontsova-Wenger O, Pool E, Bianchi-Demicheli F, and Sander D. Perception of men's beauty and attractiveness by women with low sexual desire. J Sex Med 2015;12:946-955. View Show abstract ... It has been demonstrated that women spend more time looking at the eyes whereas men pay more attention to central parts of faces (nose, mouth), indicating a more globally oriented processing [30] based on a centred viewpoint compared to more fixations at the eyes in a local strategy [28]. Moreover, men exhibit greater interest in opposite-sex faces than women [31] and value attractiveness higher than women [32,33] which is reflected in stronger recruitment of reward-related areas in men viewing attractive female faces [34]. The processing and appreciation of certain social aspects of faces and essentially attractiveness arguably requires more holistic processing [35,36]. ... Sex-Differences of Face Coding: Evidence from Larger Right Hemispheric M170 in Men and Dipole Source Modelling Article Full-text available Jul 2013 PLOS ONE Hannes O Tiedt Joachim E Weber Alfred Pauls Andreas Lueschow The processing of faces relies on a specialized neural system comprising bilateral cortical structures with a dominance of the right hemisphere. However, due to inconsistencies of earlier findings as well as more recent results such functional lateralization has become a topic of discussion. In particular, studies employing behavioural tasks and electrophysiological methods indicate a dominance of the right hemisphere during face perception only in men whereas women exhibit symmetric and bilateral face processing. The aim of this study was to further investigate such sex differences in hemispheric processing of personally familiar and opposite-sex faces using whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG). We found a right-lateralized M170-component in occipito-temporal sensor clusters in men as opposed to a bilateral response in women. Furthermore, the same pattern was obtained in performing dipole localization and determining dipole strength in the M170-timewindow. These results suggest asymmetric involvement of face-responsive neural structures in men and allow to ascribe this asymmetry to the fusiform gyrus. This specifies findings from previous investigations employing event-related potentials (ERP) and LORETA reconstruction methods yielding rather extended bilateral activations showing left asymmetry in women and right lateralization in men. We discuss our finding of an asymmetric fusiform activation pattern in men in terms of holistic face processing during face evaluation and sex differences with regard to visual strategies in general and interest for opposite faces in special. Taken together the pattern of hemispheric specialization observed here yields new insights into sex differences in face perception and entails further questions about interactions between biological sex, psychological gender and influences that might be stimulus-driven or task dependent. View Show abstract ... Social attachment is certainly purported to be the "primary form of addiction" (Burkett and Young, 2012;Insel, 2003;Zellner et al., 2011). Several lines of evidence support this sort of conceptualization, including heightened incentive salience assigned to heterosexual beauty, the term typically refers to a situation where the motivational targets that are 'wanted' more than could be explained by their hedonic properties, that is to say, 'liking', which may be akin to the urges to seek drugs despite their diminished (or absent) hedonic qualities (Levy, 2008). In addition, euphoria of early encounters with the love object is indistinguishable from drug-induced high. ... Pain and Suicidality: Insights from Reward and Addiction Neuroscience. Article Jul 2013 PROG NEUROBIOL Igor Elman David Borsook Nora D Volkow Suicidality is exceedingly prevalent in pain patients. Although the pathophysiology of this link remains unclear, it may be potentially related to the partial congruence of physical and emotional pain systems. The latter system's role in suicide is also conspicuous during setbacks and losses sustained in the context of social attachments. Here we propose a model based on the neural pathways mediating reward and anti-reward (i.e., allostetic adjustment to recurrent activation of the reward circuitry); both are relevant etiologic factors in pain, suicide and social attachments. A comprehensive literature search on neurobiology of pain and suicidality was performed. The collected articles were critically reviewed and relevant data were extracted and summarized within four key areas: (1) physical and emotional pain, (2) emotional pain and social attachments, (3) pain- and suicide-related alterations of the reward and anti-reward circuits as compared to addiction, which is the premier probe for dysfunction of these circuits and (4) mechanistically informed treatments of co-occurring pain and suicidality. Pain-, stress- and analgesic drugs-induced opponent and proponent states of the mesolimbic dopaminergic pathways may render reward and anti-reward systems vulnerable to sensitization, cross-sensitization and aberrant learning of contents and contexts associated with suicidal acts and behaviors. These findings suggest that pain patients exhibit alterations in the brain circuits mediating reward (depressed function) and anti-reward (sensitized function) that may affect their proclivity for suicide and support pain and suicidality classification among other "reward deficiency syndromes" and a new proposal for "enhanced anti-reward syndromes". We suggest that interventions aimed at restoring the balance between the reward and anti-reward networks in patients with chronic pain may help decreasing their suicide risk. View Show abstract ... Second, research has demonstrated that humans spend more time looking at faces that are considered attractive than at less attractive faces (e.g., Aharon et al., 2001;Shimojo et al., 2003;Sui and Liu, 2009;Leder et al., 2010;Chen et al., 2012). However, these effects are not the same in all individuals: compared to women, men exhibit a higher motivation to view attractive opposite-sex faces (Levy et al., 2008;Hahn et al., 2013) and are more likely to show attentional biases toward attractive opposite-sex stimuli (Maner et al., 2003(Maner et al., , 2007. ... Using eye tracking to test for individual differences in attention to attractive faces Article Full-text available Feb 2015 Christian Valuch Lena S. Pflüger Bernard Wallner Ulrich Ansorge We assessed individual differences in visual attention toward faces in relation to their attractiveness via saccadic reaction times. Motivated by the aim to understand individual differences in attention to faces, we tested three hypotheses: (a) Attractive faces hold or capture attention more effectively than less attractive faces; (b) men show a stronger bias toward attractive opposite-sex faces than women; and (c) blue-eyed men show a stronger bias toward blue-eyed than brown-eyed feminine faces. The latter test was included because prior research suggested a high effect size. Our data supported hypotheses (a) and (b) but not (c). By conducting separate tests for disengagement of attention and attention capture, we found that individual differences exist at distinct stages of attentional processing but these differences are of varying robustness and importance. In our conclusion, we also advocate the use of linear mixed effects models as the most appropriate statistical approach for studying inter-individual differences in visual attention with naturalistic stimuli. View Show abstract ... Locke introduced motivation as one of the steps for achieving communication effectiveness [20]. Scott insisted that without a sufficient level of motivation, communication may not be successful [32]. Anthony and Govindarajan though, showed that a company must increase motivation through development the communication to improve decisions and financial success [1]. ... Strategic Operations Management: Investigating the Factors Impacting Communication Effectiveness and Job Satisfaction Article Full-text available Dec 2011 Hassan Jorfi Saeid Jorfi In today's strategic management, emotional intelligence in organizations of Iran plays a main role among manager and employees worldwide. The paper is undertaken to understand the roles of strategic behaviour and motivation with relationship between managers’ emotional intelligence and employees to improve communication effectiveness and job satisfaction in organizations of Iran. Data (N=123) for this study were collected through questionnaires that participants were managers and employees of Agricultural Bank of Iran. The aim of this paper assesses the emotional intelligence with communication effectiveness and motivation as moderator in Agricultural Bank of Iran. Strategic management plays an important role in strategic behaviours of managers and employees in organizations. Also, on the other hand, strategic management has a positive relationship with strategic alignment and strategic alignment can impact motivation in this study. Effective strategic alignment has a positive effect on the motivation of managers and employees in organizations of Iran. Additionally emotional intelligence influenced by strategic behaviour in this relationship.The result of the paper shows a strong correspondence between motivation with the relationship between emotional intelligence and communication effectiveness, and also communication effectiveness with job satisfaction. View Show abstract ... Although our previous studies have established a potential link between reproductive hormone status and cuteness sensitivity, we currently do not know whether reproductive hormone status modulates the aesthetic salience ('liking') or the incentive salience ('wanting') of infant faces, and whether aesthetic salience and incentive salience of infant faces are linked. Both 'liking' (as assessed with a rating task) and 'wanting' (as assessed with a 'pay per view task') are dissociable components of the reward process and associated with separable neural structures; 'liking' is associated with fronto-temporal brain regions, whereas 'wanting' is associated with mesolimbic brain regions [10,11,12]. ... Aesthetic and Incentive Salience of Cute Infant Faces: Studies of Observer Sex, Oral Contraception and Menstrual Cycle Article Full-text available May 2013 PLOS ONE Reiner Sprengelmeyer Jen Lewis Amanda C Hahn David I Perrett Infant cuteness can influence adult-infant interaction and has been shown to activate reward centres in the brain. In a previous study, we found men and women to be differentially sensitive to small differences in infant facial cuteness, with reproductive hormone status as the potential underlying cause. It is unclear, however, whether reproductive hormone status impacts on the aesthetic and incentive salience of infant faces. To address this question, we conducted two interlinked studies. We used static images of the same smiling and neutral-looking infant faces in both a rating task, in which participants had to rate the cuteness of infant faces (aesthetic salience - ‘liking’), and a key-press task, in which participants could prolong or shorten viewing time of infant faces by rapid alternating key-presses (incentive salience - ‘wanting’). In a first study, we compared the performance of men, women who are taking oral contraceptives, and regularly cycling women. In this study, we found a significant correlation between cuteness ratings within and between groups, which implies that participants had the same concept of cuteness. Cuteness ratings and effort to look at faces was linked regardless of sex and reproductive hormone status, in that cute faces were looked at for longer than less cute faces. A happy facial expression contributed only marginally to the incentive salience of the face. To explore the potential impact of reproductive hormone status in more detail, we followed a subset of regularly cycling women during the menstrual, follicular and luteal phases of their cycle. The aesthetic and incentive salience of infant faces did not change across the menstrual cycle. Our findings suggest that reproductive hormone status does not modulate the aesthetic and incentive value of infant faces. View Show abstract ... We combined a Go/No-go task with a subsequent progressive-ratio key-press task (Hodos, 1961). The key-press task operationalizes the amount of time and effort participants are willing to expend to view an image as a measure of its motivational incentive (Aharon et al., 2001;Levy et al., 2008). We expect that inhibition will decrease the motivational incentive of sexual images; thus, participants should execute fewer key-presses to see images of the sort previously encountered on No-go trials compared to those seen on prior Go trials. ... Hot or Not: Response Inhibition Reduces the Hedonic Value and Motivational Incentive of Sexual Stimuli Article Full-text available Dec 2012 Anne Ferrey Alexandra Frischen Mark James Fenske The motivational incentive of reward-related stimuli can become so salient that it drives behavior at the cost of other needs. Here we show that response inhibition applied during a Go/No-go task not only impacts hedonic evaluations but also reduces the behavioral incentive of motivationally relevant stimuli. We first examined the impact of response inhibition on the hedonic value of sex stimuli associated with strong behavioral-approach responses (Experiment 1). Sexually appealing and non-appealing images were both rated as less attractive when previously encountered as No-go (inhibited) than as Go (non-inhibited) items. We then discovered that inhibition reduces the motivational incentive of sexual appealing stimuli (Experiment 2). Prior Go/No-go status affected the number of key-presses by heterosexual males to view erotic-female (sexually appealing) but not erotic-male or scrambled-control (non-appealing) images. These findings may provide a foundation for developing inhibition-based interventions to reduce the hedonic value and motivational incentive of stimuli associated with disorders of self-control. View Show abstract ... This experiment utilized a keypress task to determine each subject's relative preference toward the ensemble of faces Elman et al., 2005;Strauss et al., 2005;Levy et al., 2008;Makris et al., 2008;Perlis et al., 2008; FIGURE 2 | Keypress Paradigm. The behavioral task done outside the MRI to minimize motor confounds to activation is schematized above, with an example raster plot below. ... Age-related striatal BOLD changes without changes in behavioral loss aversion Article Full-text available Apr 2015 FRONT HUM NEUROSCI Vijay Viswanathan Sang Win Lee Jodi M Gilman Hans Breiter Loss aversion (LA), the idea that negative valuations have a higher psychological impact than positive ones, is considered an important variable in consumer research. The literature on aging and behavior suggests older individuals may show more LA, although it is not clear if this is an effect of aging in general (as in the continuum from age 20 and 50 years), or of the state of older age (e.g., past age 65 years). We also have not yet identified the potential biological effects of aging on the neural processing of LA. In the current study we used a cohort of subjects with a 30 year range of ages, and performed whole brain functional MRI (fMRI) to examine the ventral striatum/nucleus accumbens (VS/NAc) response during a passive viewing of affective faces with model-based fMRI analysis incorporating behavioral data from a validated approach/avoidance task with the same stimuli. Our a priori focus on the VS/NAc was based on (1) the VS/NAc being a central region for reward/aversion processing; (2) its activation to both positive and negative stimuli; (3) its reported involvement with tracking LA. LA from approach/avoidance to affective faces showed excellent fidelity to published measures of LA. Imaging results were then compared to the behavioral measure of LA using the same affective faces. Although there was no relationship between age and LA, we observed increasing neural differential sensitivity (NDS) of the VS/NAc to avoidance responses (negative valuations) relative to approach responses (positive valuations) with increasing age. These findings suggest that a central region for reward/aversion processing changes with age, and may require more activation to produce the same LA behavior as in younger individuals, consistent with the idea of neural efficiency observed with high IQ individuals showing less brain activation to complete the same task. View Show abstract ... The present experiment was designed to test whether inhibition likewise affects the subsequent motivation to seek previously ignored stimuli. To this end, I employed a Go/No-go inhibitory devaluation task combined with a progressive ratio key press task (Hodos, 1961), which operationalizes the amount of work participants are willing to do in order to view an appealing image as a measure of the motivational salience of the stimulus (Aharon et al., 2001;Elman et al., 2005;Levy et al., 2008;Goddard, 2011). If inhibition decreases the motivational value of sexually appealing images, then participants should execute fewer key presses to see images of the sort previously encountered on No-go trials compared to those seen on prior Go trials ... Cognitive Inhibition Modifies the Affective and Incentive Value of Motivationally Salient Stimuli Article Jul 2012 Anne Ferrey View ... Participants are willing to engage in effortful behavior in order to view attractive faces longer. For example, they perform more complicated or longer button presses (Aharon et al., 2001;Hayden et al., 2007, Study 3;Levy et al., 2008). Males seem to be particularly rewarded by female attractiveness. ... Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest one of all? Influencing factors and effects of facial attractiveness. Chapter Full-text available Jan 2014 Gernot Gerger Helmut Leder Facial attractiveness influences us in a variety of ways. Not only does it affect which partners we date, mate with or marry, but it also affects how we think about and interact with others. Nearly everyone has experienced how stunning attractiveness captures the eye. And nearly everyone enjoys looking at attractive faces. Moreover, advertisements of consumer products take advantage of the effects of facial attractiveness. The expectation here is that the positive effects of attractiveness would generalize to consumers’ product evaluations (Baker and Churchill, 1977). The preoccupation with attractiveness is also reflected in the considerable effort people put into looking attractive: “In the United States more money is spent on attractiveness than on education or social services” (Etcoff, 1999, p. 6). Thus, a multibillion-dollar industry lives off of the promise of increased attractiveness. It is, however, still unclear what the essence of facial attractiveness really is, but researchers have put considerable effort into revealing what, why and how different factors contribute to attractiveness. In the current chapter, we discuss what makes faces attractive and present some hypotheses on why this might be the case. We also show how our brains process attractiveness and how attractiveness affects various aspects of our experiences and behaviors. What is attractiveness? Throughout this chapter, we use the term “attractiveness” to refer to the aesthetic qualities of faces. Attractiveness is the most commonly used term in scientific studies. This common use of attractiveness is noteworthy because most people typically mention beauty, but not attractiveness, when discussing the aesthetic qualities of faces (Augustin, Wagemans and Carbon, 2012). However, there might be some difference between beauty and attractiveness. Beauty could refer more to aesthetic qualities of a face per se, while attractiveness could refer more to the function of aesthetic qualities of faces – indicating sexual and social qualities of potential mates (Little, Jones and DeBruine, 2011; Senior, 2003; Thornhill and Gangestad, 1999). Additionally, depending on the context, focusing on attractiveness might accentuate different aspects of aesthetic qualities of faces. In a mating context, for instance, sexual qualities might be considered more important for attractiveness evaluations, as compared to a non-mating context. Importantly, when evaluating a face, these aspects yield different motivational and emotional consequences. Thus, in our chapter, we will consider these aspects in the interpretation of results. View Show abstract ... On the other hand, MDD males' high focused preference might facilitate a novel therapeutic approach in MDD. Previous reports have shown that males generally show higher preference and motivation toward attractive opposite-sex faces 64,65 . Attractive faces are easier for visual processing 66 , suggesting that attractive appearance enhances the ability of MDD patients with impaired cognitive functioning or lowered motivation to be attracted. ... Plasma acetylcholine and nicotinic acid are correlated with focused preference for photographed females in depressed males: an economic game study Article Full-text available Jan 2021 Hiroaki Kubo Daiki Setoyama Motoki Watabe Takahiro A. Kato Interpersonal difficulties are often observed in major depressive disorder (MDD), while the underlying psychological and biological mechanisms have not yet been elucidated. In the present case–control study, a PC-based trust game was conducted for 38 drug-free MDD patients and 38 healthy controls (HC). In the trust game, participants invested money in a partner (trusting behaviors), and also rated each partner’s attractiveness (preference for others). In addition, blood biomarkers including metabolites were measured. Both MDD and HC males exhibited more trusting behaviors compared to females. MDD males’ preference for ordinary-attractive partners (lay-person photographs) was lower than HC males, whereas their preference for high-attractive females (fashion-model photographs) was similar levels to HC males. This tendency in MDD males could reflect a “focused (narrowed) preference for females”. As for blood biomarker analysis, the levels of 37 metabolites including acetylcholine, AMP, GMP, nicotinic acid and tryptophan were significantly different between two groups. Interestingly, among male participants, acetylcholine and nicotinic acid were negatively correlated with the level of focused preference for photographed females. In sum, we have revealed some behavioral, psychological and biological traits of trusting behaviors and preference for others especially in MDD males. Larger studies should be conducted to validate our preliminary findings. View Show abstract ... AHARON et al. (2001) stwierdzili, że mężczyźni dają wysokie oceny atrakcyjności niektórym twarzom kobiet i niektórym twarzom mężczyzn, ale jedynie w stosunku do atrakcyjnych twarzy kobiet mężczyzna zabiega o to, by je dłużej oglądać (w tym eksperymencie: wielokrotne naciskanie klawisza na klawiaturze powodowało dłuższe wyświetlanie twarzy na ekranie). LEVY et al. (2008) umożliwili badanym zarówno skracanie jak i wydłużanie czasu prezentacji twarzy i uzyskali następujące wyniki: (i) obie płcie nieco skracają czas dla twarzy (obu płci) o przeciętnej atrakcyjności, a silniedla twarzy nieatrakcyjnych, (ii) kobiety wydłużają czas dla atrakcyjnych twarzy obu płci, (iii) mężczyźni silnie wydłużają czas dla atrakcyjnych twarzy kobiecych, ale skracają dla atrakcyjnych twarzy męskich. Możliwe, że chęć do oglądania atrakcyjnej twarzy odpowiada za "odmładzanie" proporcji twarzy (większe oczy, bardziej okrągłe oczy, wargi i twarz) na portretach i autoportretach (COSTA i CORAZZA 2006). ... Atrakcyjność twarzy (2013) Research Full-text available Dec 2015 Krzysztof Kościński A newer version of the Polish text which has been published (in somewhat shortened form) as two English-language papers: "Facial attractiveness: General patterns of facial preferences" and "Facial attractiveness: Variation, adaptiveness and consequences of facial preferences". View Show abstract ... As conducted in other studies using the KSOG as a measure of sexual identity (Blashill & Powlishta, 2009;Levy et al., 2013), participants in the present study rated their sexual identity as scores of 4 (hetero/gay-lesbian/queer/non-heterosexual equally = 14.7%), 5 (gay-lesbian/queer/non-heterosexual somewhat more = 5.6%), 6 (gay-lesbian/queer/non-heterosexual mostly = 21.8%), or 7 (gay-lesbian/queer/non-heterosexual only = 57.9%). ... Confirmatory factor analyses of the Body Image-Acceptance and Action Questionnaire and Functionality Appreciation Scale among LGBQ adults Article Full-text available Nov 2020 Zachary Soulliard Jillon S Vander Wal Positive body image has been recognized as a construct that extends beyond evaluation of one’s physical appearance and instead focuses broadly on the love and respect people hold about their bodies. As a multidimensional construct, positive body image has been assessed via several different self-report measures. For example, body image flexibility and functionality appreciation refer to two aspects of positive body image that have been measured via the Body Image-Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (BI-AAQ) and Functionality Appreciation Scale (FAS). Although the study of positive body image has expanded the body image and eating disorder literature, the majority of positive body image research, including the use of the BI-AAQ and FAS, has been conducted among presumably heterosexual participants. As such, it is unclear whether the factor structures of measures, such as the BI-AAQ and FAS, are supported among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) individuals. The purpose of the present study was to assess the factor structures of the BI-AAQ and FAS via confirmatory factor analyses among a sample of LGBQ adults. Based on a sample of 197 self-identified LGBQ participants recruited online, the factorial validity of the BI-AAQ and FAS were both generally supported with unitary factor structures, as have been found among presumably heterosexual samples. Results suggest that the BI-AAQ and FAS may be used when assessing body image flexibility and functionality appreciation among LGBQ individuals. Future directions regarding body image flexibility and functionality appreciation measures among LGBQ individuals are also discussed. View Show abstract ... Given that cognitive resources are limited, compared with allocating cognitive resources to HA male mates, allocating cognitive resources to competitive same-sex rivals makes more sense. Therefore, evolutionary theory predicts that only HA female faces can capture attention from both men and women, and numerous results support this hypothesis (Maner et al., 2003(Maner et al., , 2007aLevy et al., 2008;Lovén et al., 2011). ... Mechanisms for the Cognitive Processing of Attractiveness in Adult and Infant Faces: From the Evolutionary Perspective Article Full-text available Mar 2020 Qinhong Xie Taiyong Bi Hui Kou Research on the cognitive processing of facial attractiveness has mainly focused on adult faces. Recent studies have revealed that the cognitive processing of facial attractiveness in infant faces is not the same as that in adult faces. Therefore, it is necessary to summarize the evidence on the processing of facial attractiveness in each kind of face and compare their underlying mechanisms. In this paper, we first reviewed studies on the cognitive processing of facial attractiveness in adult faces, including attentional and mnemonic processing, and then discussed the underlying mechanisms. Afterward, studies on facial attractiveness in infant faces were reviewed, and the underlying mechanisms were also discussed. Direct comparisons between the two kinds of cognitive processing were subsequently made. The results showed that the mechanisms for the processing of attractiveness in adult faces and infant faces are mainly motivated by the perspectives of mate selection and raising offspring, respectively, in evolutionary psychology. Finally, directions for future research are proposed. View Show abstract ... For the present study, participants were asked to rate themselves based on a scale from 1 to 7, where 1 is heterosexual only and 7 is gay/lesbian/queer/non-hetero only. Similarly to other studies (Blashill & Powlishta, 2009;Levy et al., 2013), participants were considered a sexual minority if they reported their identity between a 4 (hetero/gay-lesbian/queer/non-hetero equally) and 7 (gay-lesbian/queer/non-hetero only). Participants were also asked to provide their height and weight in order to calculate their BMI, which was treated continuously in all analyses. ... Validation of the Body Appreciation Scale-2 and relationships to eating behaviors and health among sexual minorities Article Full-text available Oct 2019 Zachary Soulliard Jillon S Vander Wal Although the study of positive body image continues to expand, researchers have predominantly focused the study of this newer construct among presumed heterosexual participants. The purpose of the present study was to examine the factor structure of a measure of positive body image, the Body Appreciation Scale-2 (BAS-2), among sexual minority participants. The present study also sought to psychometrically validate the BAS-2 among sexual minorities by assessing its relationship with other facets of positive body image, including functionality appreciation and body image flexibility, as well as other related constructs, such as body dissatisfaction, disordered eating behaviors, intuitive eating behaviors, and physical and mental health. Results from a confirmatory factor analysis of 223 sexual minority adults (Mage = 32.45, SD = 10.07) indicated that the BAS-2 displayed strong factorial validity with a unitary factor structure. Furthermore, the BAS-2's construct validity was supported based on correlations with other measures of positive body image, body dissatisfaction, and disordered eating behavior. Results from this cross-sectional study supported a relationship between body appreciation and intuitive eating behaviors, as well as physical and mental health among sexual minority participants. These findings provide an initial understanding of body appreciation and other related constructs among sexual minority individuals. View Show abstract ... For heterosexuals, opposite-sex faces stimulate assessment and reward brain systems, such as the amygdala, cingulate and insular cortices, more than same-sex faces, signifying they hold greater salience [6]. Both heterosexual men and women favor viewing attractive faces, but men willingly expend more effort to view beautiful women's than men's faces, while women spend less energy, and equivalent amounts, to view both beautiful men's and women's faces [24]. Men show slower response times to beautiful faces than women, evidencing greater cognitive load while processing attractive faces [25]. ... Perception and Deception: Human Beauty and the Brain Article Full-text available Mar 2019 Syst Res Behav Sci Daniel Yarosh Human physical characteristics and their perception by the brain are under pressure by natural selection to optimize reproductive success. Men and women have different strategies to appear attractive and have different interests in identifying beauty in people. Nevertheless, men and women from all cultures agree on who is and who is not attractive, and throughout the world attractive people show greater acquisition of resources and greater reproductive success than others. The brain employs at least three modules, composed of interconnected brain regions, to judge facial attractiveness: one for identification, one for interpretation and one for valuing. Key elements that go into the judgment are age and health, as well as symmetry, averageness, face and body proportions, facial color and texture. These elements are all Costly Signals of reproductive fitness because they are difficult to fake. However, people deceive others using tricks such as coloring hair, cosmetics and clothing styles, while at the same time they also focus on detecting fakes. People may also deceive themselves, especially about their own attractiveness, and use self-signally actions to demonstrate to themselves their own true value. The neuroscience of beauty is best understood by considering the evolutionary pressures to maximize reproductive fitness. View Show abstract ... van Osch et al. (2015) showed that the group attractiveness effect occurs because observers only attend to a subset of the most attractive faces in the group. Attractiveness is a salient visual cue (Levy et al., 2008), and observers gaze longer at attractive than unattractive faces (Maner et al., 2003;van Osch et al., 2015). It is possible that selective attention toward the most attractive face in the group could cause the cheerleader effect. ... Social Perception in Group Scenes: Social Context Modulates Perceptions of Facial Attractiveness Thesis Full-text available Dec 2018 Daniel Carragher Despite the cautionary reminder to never “judge a book by its cover”, we regularly judge others based upon their facial appearance. Far from meaning that we are all terribly judgmental, these trait impressions occur automatically. Even though they are often not accurate, the trait judgments that we make about others can influence our own decision making. The candidate with the more “competent” face wins approximately 70% of national elections, and criminals with “untrustworthy” faces receive longer prison sentences for the same crimes than those with “trustworthy” faces. Trait impressions have been the focus of research in the field of social perception since the earliest days of experimental psychology. While these studies have undoubtedly improved our understanding of the way that trait judgments are made from faces, the vast majority of these studies have been conducted by presenting observers with a single face at a time. However, we often meet people for the first time when they are surrounded by others, perhaps at a café or a bar. Consequently, very little is known about the way we make trait impressions about an individual face that is seen among a group of other faces. Within this thesis, I aimed to improve our understanding of the way that the facial attractiveness and trustworthiness of an individual is evaluated when they are seen among a group of other faces, compared to when they are seen alone. In the introduction to this thesis, I discuss the factors that influence the trustworthiness judgments that are made from the face, as well as the characteristics of faces that are perceived to be attractive. Then, I describe the way that the visual system processes complex visual scenes, such as a group of faces, using a process called ensemble coding. Bringing together these lines of research, I discuss “the cheerleader effect”, a phenomenon that is said to occur when the same face is perceived to be more attractive in a group compared to alone. The research in this thesis significantly advances our understanding of the cheerleader effect. My findings show that all individuals are perceived to be approximately 1.5-2% more attractive in a group than they are alone, regardless of how attractive they are, or how attractive the other group members are. I also show that the cheerleader effect does not extend to judgments of trustworthiness. Crucially, my findings are also inconsistent with the hierarchical encoding mechanism that was initially proposed to cause the cheerleader effect, which was related to the way that the visual system uses ensemble coding to summarise groups of faces. Based on the results contained within this thesis, I offer an alternative explanation for the cheerleader effect, which suggests that the effect might be related to the socially desirable characteristics that are attributed to individuals in groups. In conclusion, my findings demonstrate that social context reliably influences perceptions of facial attractiveness, and suggests that the field of social perception must be expanded to consider the influence of social context on the trait impressions that are made from the face. View Show abstract ... Since feminisation is associated with increased attractiveness, longer response times may reflect the intrinsic reward of attractiveness (Aharon et al., 2001;Leder, Tinio, Fuchs, & Bohrn, 2010) to both male and female participants. In fact, similar findings, with no behavioural differences dependent on participant's sex, when assessing the attractiveness of both sex faces, have been reported in previous research (Levy et al., 2008), namely in studies using eye-tracking (Alexander & Charles, 2008) and fMRI (Bray & O'Doherty, 2007;Kranz & Ishai, 2006). ... Event-related potentials modulated by the perception of sexual dimorphism: The influence of attractiveness and sex of faces Article Jun 2018 BIOL PSYCHOL Mariana Carrito Pedro Bem-haja Carlos Silva I.M. Santos Sexual dimorphism has been proposed as one of the facial traits to have evolved through sexual selection and to affect attractiveness perception. Even with numerous studies documenting its effect on attractiveness and mate choice, the neurophysiological correlates of the perception of sexual dimorphism are not yet fully understood. In the present study, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during visualisation of faces that had been previously transformed in shape to appear more masculine or more feminine. The participants' task consisted of judging the attractiveness of half of the total number of faces, and performing a sex discrimination task on the other half. Both early and late potentials were modulated by the sex of faces, whereas the effect of the sexually dimorphic transform was mainly visible in the P2 (positive deflection around 200 ms after stimulus onset), EPN (early posterior negativity) and LPP (late positive potentials) components. There was an effect of sexual dimorphism on P2 and EPN amplitudes when female participants visualised male faces, which may indicate that masculinity is particularly attended to when viewing opposite sex members. Also, ERP results seem to support the idea of sex differences in social categorisation decisions regarding faces, although differences were not evident on behavioural results. In general, these findings contribute to a better understanding of how humans perceive sexually dimorphic characteristics in other individuals' faces and how they affect attractiveness judgements. View Show abstract ... by varying attractiveness. Attractive faces elicit activity in regions associated with value processing(Bray & O'Doherty, 2007;Roy, Shohamy, & Wager 2012;Tsukiura & Cabeza, 2011) and are motivationally significant: Male participants will exert greater effort to view pictures of attractive female faces than unattractive female faces(Aharon et al., 2001;Levy et al., 2008), and stimuli that predict attractive (but not unattractive) female faces take on a positive conditioned value(Bray & O'Doherty, 2007). Facial attractiveness can be assessed from minimal visual input, influences processing within 150 ms, diverts attention from task-relevant information, and facilitates later memory(Chen, Liu & Nakabayashi, 2012;Maner et al., 2003; ... The Role of Value in the Attentional Boost Effect Article Feb 2018 Q J EXP PSYCHOL Khena M Swallow Stav Atir Focusing attention on one item typically interferes with the ability to process other information. Yet, target detection can both facilitate memory for items paired with the target (the attentional boost effect) and increase the perceived value of those items (cued approach). Because long-term memory is better for valuable items than for neutral items, we asked whether the attentional boost effect is due to changes in the perceived value of items that are paired with targets. In three experiments, participants memorised a series of briefly presented images that depicted valuable (e.g., food) or neutral (e.g., children's toys) items. Whenever an item appeared, a square flashed in its centre. Participants pressed a button if the square was a target colour but not if it was a distractor colour. Consistent with previous research, target-paired items were remembered better than distractor-paired items and were rated as more valuable. Importantly, if memory for target-paired items is enhanced because they increased in perceived value, then valuable items should have been better remembered than neutral items. However, we found no evidence that value enhanced memory for the items in this task. Thus, it is unlikely that the attentional boost effect is due to changes in perceived value. View Show abstract ... In the Feedback Motivation condition participants (all of whom were men) were shown a desirable picture of an attractive female as feedback for correct choices. As was shown in past research, men are motivated to exert effort to see faces of attractive women (Levy et al., 2008). The pictures were chosen randomly without replacement from a large pool of such photographs. ... The influence of motivation on the use of unconscious information Thesis Full-text available Jun 2013 Maxim Milyavsky Most of our intuitive decisions are based on knowledge of which we are not completely aware (Kahneman & Klein, 2009). Although unconscious knowledge probably plays an important role in our choices, it cannot be measured directly by introspection. Thus, research must find alternative routes to assess the influence of unconscious information on subsequent mental products. A big challenge in studying this influence experimentally is establishing that one is not aware of the knowledge. Subliminal stimulation is considered a touchstone in studies on unconscious processes as it allows for the most rigorous control of awareness (Holender, 1986). Researchers of subliminal stimulation ask the following fundamental questions: What kind of subliminal information can be processed? How deeply can it be processed? To what extent can it influence behavior? What are the determinants of its influence? So far, research has focused mainly on the first two questions, while relatively few studies have been conducted on the latter. In this work, I focused on the little-researched area of direct subliminal influence on choice. In particular, I asked whether achievement motivation can enhance the use of subliminal information on choice. A novel Category-Based Choice (CBC) paradigm was developed to examine this question. In each trial of the CBC task, participants are asked to choose one of four category-labeled cards. The winning category is randomly determined in each trial, and if participants choose it they are rewarded. Prior to choosing, participants are exposed to a subliminal prime. In half of the trials, this prime is a verbal cue – an exemplar from the winning category (e.g., category: fruits and cue: apple). In the other trials, the prime is a non-word control assigned to the winning category. Since no other information predicting the winning category is provided, a better-than-chance rate of choosing the cued category indicates that the prime affects choice. The awareness of the prime is assessed in each trial both by subjective and objective tests. The CBC paradigm is distinguished from its predecessors in that it can measure the effect of semantic information on intuitive choices. The accuracy of these choices can then be compared to an objective standard (i.e. chance level) while the most conservative awareness tests are used. The influence of motivation and intention on use of subliminal cues in intuitive choice was tested in six experiments conducted within the framework of the CBC paradigm. Experiments 1a and 1b examined whether subliminal semantic cues can be used in intuitive choice. They also tested one possible path of motivational influence: whether motivation can make some nodes in the mental lexicon more susceptible to subliminal stimulation. In order to examine this effect of motivation, the value of half of the categories was increased by assigning higher monetary rewards to accurate performance. The results of these experiments showed that subliminal cues indeed improved participants’ choices, thus establishing the basic effect of subliminally-presented word cues on intuitive choice. However, no effect of motivation was found. ii Experiment 2 tested whether achievement motivation can enhance the effect of subliminal cues on choice. Unlike Experiments 1a and 1b, which manipulated the incentives associated with specific categories, Experiment 2 assessed motivation by implicitly varying motivation levels between participants in two different ways: by (1) priming concepts related to achievement and by (2) giving slightly more attractive feedback for correct choices. Findings showed that subliminal cues improved participants’ choices in the motivation conditions but not in the control condition even though participants were not aware of being in the motivational state. Experiment 3 was conducted in order to replicate the results of Experiment 2 and to test whether control participants would learn to use subliminal cues given more practice. Therefore, the number of trials was doubled. The results replicated those of Experiment 2 and showed that given more practice, controls could obtain the effect of subliminal cues on choice too. Experiment 4 was conducted to extend the scope of the motivation effects found in Experiments 2 and 3 to the domain of explicit motivation. Motivation was increased by incentivizing certain trials with higher monetary rewards. Experiment 4 also examined the mechanism of motivational enhancement. Specifically, for some participants, the type of trial (bonus or regular) was announced before, and for others, after the presentation of the cue. There were no bonus trials in the Control condition. The findings showed that higher rewards enhanced conscious recognition of cues as well as the use of cues that were not consciously recognized in choice when the type of trial was announced before, but not after the presentation of the cues. The basic effect of the cues on choice was also obtained in the Control condition. Thus, the results showed that explicit motivation can enhance the influence of subliminal cues on choice and suggested that this effect stems from enhanced perceptual encoding of the cues. Experiment 5 aimed to replicate the effect of explicit motivation found in Experiment 4, and thus the same method of inducing motivation was used. It also tested whether intentions can modulate the use of subliminal cues. Specifically, the experiment tested whether intentions to avoid (vs. choose) could reduce the rate of choosing the subliminally cued alternative. This effect was found conditional on the motivational properties of the trial. It was obtained in the more valuable trials, but not in the less valuable trials, suggesting that motivation can enhance the effect of subliminal cues at the decision stage. The findings augment what we know about subliminal stimulation in three important directions. First, they show that subliminal semantic information from a wide spectrum of categories can improve intuitive decisions. Second, they show that achievement motivation can modulate the use of subliminal cues even when people are not aware of being in a motivated state. Third, they show that people’s intentions regarding how to use subliminal information affects the influence this information has on choice. View Show abstract ... Second, research has demonstrated that humans spend more time looking at faces that are considered attractive than at less attractive faces (e.g., Aharon et al., 2001;Shimojo et al., 2003;Sui and Liu, 2009;Leder et al., 2010;Chen et al., 2012). However, these effects are not the same in all individuals: compared to women, men exhibit a higher motivation to view attractive opposite-sex faces (Levy et al., 2008;Hahn et al., 2013) and are more likely to show attentional biases toward attractive opposite-sex stimuli (Maner et al., 2003(Maner et al., , 2007. ... Behavioral and physiological bases of attentional biases: Paradigms, participants, and stimuli Book Full-text available May 2015 Sarah M Sass Wendy Heller Joscelyn E. Fisher Gregory A. Miller View ... Lawful equations characterizing preference with a keypress task were initially identified using visual stimuli (Breiter and Kim, 2008;Kim et al., 2010;Lee et al., 2015). The keypress task was developed out of a operant framework where each keypress action had an incremental consequence on stimulus view time Lee et al., 2015), and has been well-validated across multiple studies Elman et al., 2005;Strauss et al., 2005;Levy et al., 2008;Makris et al., 2008;Perlis et al., 2008;Gasic et al., 2009;Yamamoto et al., 2009;Kim et al., 2010;Lee et al., 2015;Viswanathan et al., 2015Viswanathan et al., , 2017. It follows an intrinsic motivation framework devoid of external rewards, such as food or money (Deci and Ryan, 1985;Bandura, 1997), and quantifies reward/aversion by how much subjects approach or avoid stimuli-namely, to what extent subjects actively keypress to increase or decrease the amount of time they are exposed to predetermined categories of stimuli. ... Keypress-Based Musical Preference Is Both Individual and Lawful Article Full-text available May 2017 Sherri Lynn Livengood John P. Sheppard Byoung Woo Kim Hans Breiter Musical preference is highly individualized and is an area of active study to develop methods for its quantification. Recently, preference-based behavior, associated with activity in brain reward circuitry, has been shown to follow lawful, quantifiable patterns, despite broad variation across individuals. These patterns, observed using a keypress paradigm with visual stimuli, form the basis for relative preference theory (RPT). Here, we sought to determine if such patterns extend to non-visual domains (i.e., audition) and dynamic stimuli, potentially providing a method to supplement psychometric, physiological, and neuroimaging approaches to preference quantification. For this study, we adapted our keypress paradigm to two sets of stimuli consisting of seventeenth to twenty-first century western art music (Classical) and twentieth to twenty-first century jazz and popular music (Popular). We studied a pilot sample and then a separate primary experimental sample with this paradigm, and used iterative mathematical modeling to determine if RPT relationships were observed with high R2 fits. We further assessed the extent of heterogeneity in the rank ordering of keypress-based responses across subjects. As expected, individual rank orderings of preferences were quite heterogeneous, yet we observed mathematical patterns fitting these data similar to those observed previously with visual stimuli. These patterns in music preference were recurrent across two cohorts and two stimulus sets, and scaled between individual and group data, adhering to the requirements for lawfulness. Our findings suggest a general neuroscience framework that predicts human approach/avoidance behavior, while also allowing for individual differences and the broad diversity of human choices; the resulting framework may offer novel approaches to advancing music neuroscience, or its applications to medicine and recommendation systems. View Show abstract ... Of note, the pattern of men's and women's response to sexual stimuli of their preferred and non-preferred gender appears to extend to male and female facial images, with androphilic women showing similar viewing times of both beautiful male and female faces, and gynephilic men showing longer viewing times for beautiful female than male faces ( [1,25,38]; but see also [56], and [24], for other findings). These results further support the notion of response specificity to the preferred sexual target for men, but not for women. ... To each its own? Gender differences in affective, autonomic, and behavioral responses to same-sex and opposite-sex visual sexual stimuli Article Jan 2017 PHYSIOL BEHAV Michela Sarlo Giulia Buodo A large body of research on gender differences in response to erotic stimuli has focused on genital and/or subjective sexual arousal. On the other hand, studies assessing gender differences in emotional psychophysiological responding to sexual stimuli have only employed erotic pictures of male-female couples or female/male nudes. The present study aimed at investigating differences between gynephilic men and androphilic women in emotional responding to visual sexual stimuli depicting female-male, female-female and male-male couples. Affective responses were explored in multiple response systems, including autonomic indices of emotional activation, i.e., heart rate and skin conductance, along with standardized measures of valence and arousal. Blood pressure was measured as an index of autonomic activation associated with sexual arousal, and free viewing times as an index of interest/avoidance. Overall, men showed gender-specific activation characterized by clearly appetitive reactions to the target of their sexual attraction (i.e., women), with physiological arousal discriminating female-female stimuli as the most effective sexual cues. In contrast, women's emotional activation to sexual stimuli was clearly non-specific in most of the considered variables, with the notable exception of the self-report measures. Overall, affective responses replicate patterns of gender-specific and gender-nonspecific sexual responses in gynephilic men and androphilic women. View Show abstract ... Locke introduced motivation as one of the steps for achieving communication effectiveness (Locke, 1976). Scott insisted that without a sufficient level of motivation, communication may not be successful (Scott, 2008). Anthony and Govindarajan though, showed that a company must increase motivation through development the communication to improve decisions and financial success (Anthony and Govindarajan, 1998). ... Relationships among Strategic Management, Strategic Behaviors, Emotional Intelligence, IT-business Strategic Alignment, Motivation, and Communication Effectiveness Article Full-text available Oct 2011 Hashim Fauzy Yaacob Ishak Mad Shah Hassan Jorfi Saeid Jorfi In today's strategic management, motivation in organizations of Iran plays a main role in relationship between emotional intelligence and communication effectiveness. The paper is undertaken to understand the strategic behavior and motivation with relationship between managers' emotional intelligence and employees to improve communication effectiveness in organizations of Iran. Data (N=123) for this study were collected through questionnaires that participants were managers and employees of educational administrations and Agricultural Bank of Iran. The aim of this paper assesses the emotional intelligence with communication effectiveness and motivation as moderator in educational administrations and Agricultural Bank of Iran. Strategic management plays an important role in strategic behaviors of managers and employees in organizations. Further, on the other hand, strategic management has a positive relationship with strategic alignment and strategic alignment can impact motivation in this study. Effective strategic alignment has a positive effect on the motivation of managers and employees in organizations of Iran. Additionally emotional intelligence influenced by strategic behavior in this relationship. The result of the paper shows a strong correspondence between motivation with the relationship between emotional intelligence and communication effectiveness. Also strategic management has a positive relationship with strategic behavior; on the other hand, relationship with strategic alignment that can influence View Show abstract ... This experiment utilized a keypress task to determine each subject's relative preference toward the ensemble of faces Elman et al., 2005;Strauss et al., 2005;Levy et al., 2008;Makris et al., 2008;Perlis et al., 2008; FIGURE 2 | Keypress Paradigm. The behavioral task done outside the MRI to minimize motor confounds to activation is schematized above, with an example raster plot below. ... Using fMRI Analysis to Unpack a Portion of Prospect Theory for Advertising/Marketing Understanding Chapter Jan 2016 Don Schultz Martin P. Block Fengqing (Zoe) Zhang Vijay Viswanathan One of the key elements being used today to support/reject/enhance marketing/advertising theory is Kahneman and Tversky’s prospect theory (1979). Interest has been growing on how that concept might support/explain how advertising “works” based on Kahneman’s later concepts as found in his text “Thinking Fast and Slow” (2011). All have spawned and supported the field of behavioral economics (Kahneman, American Economic Review, 93: 1449–1475, 2003). Literally thousands of discussions, speculations, hypotheses, and applications of these concepts can now be found in the advertising literature. Yet, in spite of its broad industry and practitioner acceptance, the basic fundamentals of prospect theory, as Kahneman and Tversky outlined them in their original paper, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk” (1979), and their follow-on book, “Choices, Values and Frames” (2000) still rely mostly on support from small scale, academic, laboratory experiments based on questionnaires and researcher interpretations. We employ the new tools of fMRI in an age-related experiment. Loss Aversion has a long history in marketing and communication theory and the ability to connect or refute that concept to aging in marketing theory would seem a major aid to marketers going forward. View Show abstract ... Even though, some consideration should be given to its limitations and future prospects. First, it was not possible to evaluate gender difference due to the unbalanced sample in the present study, though some research suggests that this factor affects behavior (Levy et al., 2008). Therefore, future research should disentangle the gender influence. ... Effect of Affective Personality Information on Face Processing: Evidence from ERPs Article Full-text available May 2016 Qiuling Luo Wang Hanlin M. Dzhelyova Lei Mo This study tested the extent to which there are neural correlates of the influence of affective personality information on face processing, using event-related potentials (ERPs). In the learning phase, participants viewed a target individual’s face (with a neutral expression or faint smile) paired with negative, neutral or positive sentences describing the target’s previous typical behavior. In the following EEG testing phase, participants completed gender judgments of the learned faces. Statistical analyses were conducted on measures of neural activity during the gender judgment task. Repeated measures ANOVA of ERP data showed that faces described as having a negative personality elicited larger N170 than did those with a neutral or positive description. The early posterior negativity (EPN) showed the same pattern, with larger amplitudes for faces paired with negative personality than for others. The size of the late positive potential (LPP) was larger for faces paired with positive personality than for those with neutral and negative personality. The current study indicates that affective personality information is associated with an automatic, top-down modulation of face processing. View Show abstract A different pattern of lateralised brain activity during processing of loved faces in men and women: A MEG study Article Oct 2014 BIOL PSYCHOL Klaus M. Beier Hannes O Tiedt Andreas Lueschow Joachim E Weber Viewing personally familiar and loved faces evokes a distinct pattern of brain activity as demonstrated by research employing imaging and electrophysiological methods. The aim of the current investigation was to study the perception of loved faces combined with recalling past emotional experiences using whole-head magnetoencephalograpy (MEG). Twenty-eight participants (fourteen female) viewed photographs of their romantic partner as well as of two long-term friends while imagining a positive emotional encounter with the respective person. Face-stimuli evoked a slow and sustained shift of magnetic activity from 300ms post-stimulus onwards which differentiated loved from friends' faces in female participants and left-sided sensors only. This late-latency evoked magnetic field resembled (as its magnetic counterpart) ERP-modulations by affective content and memory, most notably the late positive potential (LPP). We discuss our findings in the light of studies suggesting greater responsiveness to affective cues in women as well as sex differences in autobiographical and emotional memory. View Show abstract APPLICATIONS OF SIGNALING THEORY TO CONTEMPORARY HUMAN COURTSHIP Article Bria Lane Dunham View Influential Factors of Facial Attractiveness: The Observer Hypothesis Article Full-text available Dec 2013 Hui Kou Yanhua Su Yan Zhang Hong Chen View Seeing Faces Chapter Jan 2010 David I Perrett View Facial attractiveness: Variation, adaptiveness and consequences of facial preferences Article Full-text available Jan 2008 Krzysztof Kościński Facial attractiveness: Variation, adaptiveness and consequences of facial preferences This review embraces the following topics: intra- and inter-populational variation of facial preferences, relationship between facial attractiveness and mate value, biological and social effects of the perception of facial attractiveness, credibility of the adaptive perspective on facial preferences, and the phylogeny of facial attractiveness. Its main conclusions are as follows: (1) Many sources of inter-individual variation in assessments of facial attractiveness have been identified, e.g., the age, sex, biological quality, physiological state, personality, and living situation of the judge, as well as previously observed faces, physical similarity of the focal face to the judge's face, and acquaintance with and knowledge of the face owner. (2) Inter-populational consistency in perception of facial attractiveness is substantial and possesses both a biological and a cultural basis. (3) Facial attractiveness is a reliable cue to biological quality of the face owner, e.g., better parasite resistance, physical fitness, reproductive fitness, longevity, less mutational load, higher intelligence and better mental health. (4) Facially attractive people have more sexual partners, marry at a younger age, and remain single less frequently. Thereby, they have higher reproductive success than unattractive individuals. (5) As a whole, research supports the thesis that facial preferences are adaptive, that is, they evolved during the course of biological evolution because they assisted an individual in choosing a mate with good genes or a good personality. View Show abstract Beauty captures the attention of the beholder Article Oct 2014 Annukka K Lindell Kaarina L. Lindell Humans are exquisitely sensitive to beauty: it plays a primary role in impression formation and influences subsequent judgements, favouring the beautiful. Why? This paper examines the factors underlying beauty's effect on the mind of the beholder. First we review the evolutionary importance of beauty, including its role as reward, before focusing on the impact of beauty on attention and the influence of motivational state. The research reviewed demonstrates the evolutionary importance of beauty as an implicit cue indexing genotypic and phenotypic quality: as a preference for beauty is highly adaptive, the brain has evolved to activate neural networks associated with reward in response to beautiful faces (e.g., orbitofrontal cortex, nucleus accumbens, ventral striatum). Not surprisingly then, beauty holds privileged attentional status: even when attention is consciously engaged elsewhere, beauty alters attentional deployment rapidly, effortlessly and unconsciously, capturing attention even when beauty falls outside the focus of conscious attention or a region of high visual acuity. Motivational context also influences attentional adhesion to beauty, with perceiver gender, relationship status and sociosexual orientation all influencing attentional capture. Overall, the research confirms that beauty holds privileged attentional status, in keeping with its evolutionary importance; beauty truly does capture the mind of the beholder. View Show abstract Attractive faces are rewarding irrespective of face category: Motivation in viewing attractive faces in Japanese viewers Conference Paper Full-text available Jan 2020 Maiko Kobayashi Katsumi Watanabe Koyo Nakamura View Changes in Lower Facial Height and Facial Esthetics with Incremental Increases in Occlusal Vertical Dimension in Dentate Subjects Article Jul 2015 INT J PROSTHODONT Orenstein, Noah Philip, DMD Avinash S Bidra John R Agar Mark D Little To determine if there are objective changes in lower facial height and subjective changes in facial esthetics with incremental increases in occlusal vertical dimension in dentate subjects. Twenty subjects of four different races and both sexes with a Class I dental occlusion had custom diagnostic occlusal prostheses (mandibular overlays) fabricated on casts mounted on a semi-adjustable articulator. The overlays were fabricated at 2-mm, 3-mm, 4-mm, and 5-mm openings of the anterior guide pin of a semi-adjustable articulator. Direct facial measurements were made between pronasale and menton on each subject while wearing the four different overlays. Thereafter, two digital photographs (frontal and profile) were taken for each subject at maximum intercuspation (baseline) and wearing each of the four mandibular overlays. The photographs of eight subjects were standardized and displayed in a random order to 60 judges comprising 30 laypeople, 15 general dentists, and 15 prosthodontists. Using a visual analog scale, each judge was asked to rate the facial esthetics twice for each of the 80 images. For objective changes, although an anterior guide pin-lower facial height relationship of 1:0.63 mm was observed, the findings were not correlated (P > .20). For subjective changes, the visual analog scale ratings of judges were uncorrelated with increases in anterior guide pin opening up to 5 mm, irrespective of the judge's background status or the sexes of the judges or the subjects (P > .80). Incremental increases in anterior guide pin opening up to 5 mm did not correlate to similar increases in lower facial height. Additionally, it made no difference in a judge's evaluation of facial esthetics irrespective of the judge's background status (layperson, general dentist, or prosthodontist) or sex. View Show abstract Attractive faces are rewarding irrespective of face category Motivation in viewing attractive faces in Japanese viewers Article Full-text available Jan 2020 Maiko Kobayashi Koyo Nakamura Katsumi Watanabe View Show more Dominance and Heterosexual Attraction Article Full-text available Apr 1987 J PERS SOC PSYCHOL Edward K. Sadalla Douglas T. Kenrick Beth Vershure Four experiments examined the relation between behavioral expressions of dominance and the heterosexual attractiveness of males and females. Predictions concerning the relation between dominance and heterosexual attraction were derived from a consideration of sex role norms and from the comparative biological literature. All four experiments indicated an interaction between dominance and sex of target. Dominance behavior increased the attractiveness of males, but had no effect on the attractiveness of females. The third study indicated that the effect did not depend on the sex of the rater or on the sex of those with whom the dominant target interacted. The fourth study showed that the effect was specific to dominance as an independent variable and did not occur for related constructs (aggressive or domineering). This study also found that manipulated dominance enhanced only a male's sexual attractiveness and not his general likability. The results were discussed in terms of potential biological and cultural causal mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved) View Show abstract Buss, David M. 1989. “Sex Differences in Human Mate Preferences: Evolutionary Hypotheses Tested in 37 Cultures.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences Article Full-text available Mar 1989 Behav Brain Sci David M Buss Contemporary mate preferences can provide important clues to human reproductive history. Little is known about which characteristics people value in potential mates. Five predictions were made about sex differences in human mate preferences based on evolutionary conceptions of parental investment, sexual selection, human reproductive capacity, and sexual asymmetries regarding certainty of paternity versus maternity. The predictions centered on how each sex valued earning capacity, ambition— industriousness, youth, physical attractiveness, and chastity. Predictions were tested in data from 37 samples drawn from 33 countries located on six continents and five islands (total N = 10,047). For 27 countries, demographic data on actual age at marriage provided a validity check on questionnaire data. Females were found to value cues to resource acquisition in potential mates more highly than males. Characteristics signaling reproductive capacity were valued more by males than by females. These sex differences may reflect different evolutionary selection pressures on human males and females; they provide powerful cross-cultural evidence of current sex differences in reproductive strategies. Discussion focuses on proximate mechanisms underlying mate preferences, consequences for human intrasexual competition, and the limitations of this study. View Show abstract Sexual Strategies Theory: An Evolutionary Perspective on Human Mating Article Full-text available May 1993 PSYCHOL REV David M Buss David Schmitt This article proposes a contextual-evolutionary theory of human mating strategies. Both men and women are hypothesized to have evolved distinct psychological mechanisms that underlie short-term and long-term strategies. Men and women confront different adaptive problems in short-term as opposed to long-term mating contexts. Consequently, different mate preferences become activated from their strategic repertoires. Nine key hypotheses and 22 predictions from Sexual Strategies Theory are outlined and tested empirically. Adaptive problems sensitive to context include sexual accessibility, fertility assessment, commitment seeking and avoidance, immediate and enduring resource procurement, paternity certainty, assessment of mate value, and parental investment. Discussion summarizes 6 additional sources of behavioral data, outlines adaptive problems common to both sexes, and suggests additional contexts likely to cause shifts in mating strategy. View Show abstract Biobehavioral Responses to Stress in Females: Tend-and-Befriend, Not Fight-or-Flight Article Full-text available Aug 2000 PSYCHOL REV Shelley Taylor Laura Cousino Klein Brian P. Lewis John A Updegraff The human stress response has been characterized, both physiologically and behaviorally, as "fight-or-flight." Although fight-or-flight may characterize the primary physiological responses to stress for both males and females, we propose that, behaviorally, females' responses are more marked by a pattern of "tend-and-befriend." Tending involves nurturant activities designed to protect the self and offspring that promote safety and reduce distress; befriending is the creation and maintenance of social networks that may aid in this process. The biobehavioral mechanism that underlies the tend-and-befriend pattern appears to draw on the attachment-caregiving system, and neuroendocrine evidence from animal and human studies suggests that oxytocin, in conjunction with female reproductive hormones and endogenous opioid peptide mechanisms, may be at its core. This previously unexplored stress regulatory system has manifold implications for the study of stress. View Show abstract Saper CB, Chou TC, Elmquist JK. The need to feed: homeostatic and hedonic control of eating. Neuron 36: 199-211 Article Full-text available Nov 2002 NEURON Clifford B. Saper Thomas C Jhou Joel K Elmquist Feeding provides substrate for energy metabolism, which is vital to the survival of every living animal and therefore is subject to intense regulation by brain homeostatic and hedonic systems. Over the last decade, our understanding of the circuits and molecules involved in this process has changed dramatically, in large part due to the availability of animal models with genetic lesions. In this review, we examine the role played in homeostatic regulation of feeding by systemic mediators such as leptin and ghrelin, which act on brain systems utilizing neuropeptide Y, agouti-related peptide, melanocortins, orexins, and melanin concentrating hormone, among other mediators. We also examine the mechanisms for taste and reward systems that provide food with its intrinsically reinforcing properties and explore the links between the homeostatic and hedonic systems that ensure intake of adequate nutrition. View Show abstract What Does Sexual Orientation Orient? A Biobehavioral Model Distinguishing Romantic Love and Sexual Desire Article Full-text available Feb 2003 PSYCHOL REV Lisa Diamond Although it is typically presumed that heterosexual individuals only fall in love with other-gender partners and gay-lesbian individuals only fall in love with same-gender partners, this is not always so. The author develops a biobehavioral model of love and desire to explain why. The model specifies that (a) the evolved processes underlying sexual desire and affectional bonding are functionally independent; (b) the processes underlying affectional bonding are not intrinsically oriented toward other-gender or same-gender partners: (c) the biobehavioral links between love and desire are bidirectional, particularly among women. These claims are supported by social-psychological, historical, and cross-cultural research on human love and sexuality as well as by evidence regarding the evolved biobehavioral mechanisms underlying mammalian mating and social bonding. View Show abstract Unconscious Affective Reactions to Masked Happy Versus Angry Faces Influence Consumption Behavior and Judgments of Value Article Full-text available Feb 2005 Pers Soc Psychol Bull Piotr Winkielman Kent C Berridge Julia Wilbarger The authors explored three properties of basic, unconsciously triggered affective reactions: They can influence consequential behavior, they work without eliciting conscious feelings, and they interact with motivation. The authors investigated these properties by testing the influence of subliminally presented happy versus angry faces on pouring and consumption of beverage (Study 1), perception of beverage value (Study 2), and reports of conscious feelings (both studies). Consistent with incentive motivation theory, the impact of affective primes on beverage value and consumption was strongest for thirsty participants. Subliminal smiles caused thirsty participants to pour and consume more beverage (Study 1) and increased their willingness to pay and their wanting more beverage (Study 2). Subliminal frowns had the opposite effect. No feeling changes were observed, even in thirsty participants. The results suggest that basic affective reactions can be unconscious and interact with incentive motivation to influence assessment of value and behavior toward valenced objects. View Show abstract The Neural Basis of Addiction: A Pathology of Motivation and Choice Article Full-text available Sep 2005 AM J PSYCHIAT Peter W Kalivas Nora D Volkow A primary behavioral pathology in drug addiction is the overpowering motivational strength and decreased ability to control the desire to obtain drugs. In this review the authors explore how advances in neurobiology are approaching an understanding of the cellular and circuitry underpinnings of addiction, and they describe the novel pharmacotherapeutic targets emerging from this understanding. Findings from neuroimaging of addicts are integrated with cellular studies in animal models of drug seeking. While dopamine is critical for acute reward and initiation of addiction, end-stage addiction results primarily from cellular adaptations in anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal glutamatergic projections to the nucleus accumbens. Pathophysiological plasticity in excitatory transmission reduces the capacity of the prefrontal cortex to initiate behaviors in response to biological rewards and to provide executive control over drug seeking. Simultaneously, the prefrontal cortex is hyperresponsive to stimuli predicting drug availability, resulting in supraphysiological glutamatergic drive in the nucleus accumbens, where excitatory synapses have a reduced capacity to regulate neurotransmission. Cellular adaptations in prefrontal glutamatergic innervation of the accumbens promote the compulsive character of drug seeking in addicts by decreasing the value of natural rewards, diminishing cognitive control (choice), and enhancing glutamatergic drive in response to drug-associated stimuli. View Show abstract Food Intake and Reward Mechanisms in Patients with Schizophrenia: Implications for Metabolic Disturbances and Treatment with Second-Generation Antipsychotic Agents Article Full-text available Nov 2006 NEUROPSYCHOPHARMACOL Igor Elman David Borsook Scott E Lukas Obesity is highly prevalent among patients with schizophrenia and is associated with detrimental health consequences. Although excessive consumption of fast food and pharmacotherapy with such second-generation antipsychotic agents (SGAs) as clozapine and olanzapine has been implicated in the schizophrenia/obesity comorbidity, the pathophysiology of this link remains unclear. Here, we propose a mechanism based on brain reward function, a relevant etiologic factor in both schizophrenia and overeating. A comprehensive literature search on neurobiology of schizophrenia and of eating behavior was performed. The collected articles were critically reviewed and relevant data were extracted and summarized within four key areas: (1) energy homeostasis, (2) food reward and hedonics, (3) reward function in schizophrenia, and (4) metabolic effects of the SGAs. A mesolimbic hyperdopaminergic state may render motivational/incentive reward system insensitive to low salience/palatability food. This, together with poor cognitive control from hypofunctional prefrontal cortex and enhanced hedonic impact of food, owing to exaggerated opioidergic drive (clinically manifested as pain insensitivity), may underlie unhealthy eating habits in patients with schizophrenia. Treatment with SGAs purportedly improves dopamine-mediated reward aspects, but at the cost of increased appetite and worsened or at least not improved opiodergic capacity. These effects can further deteriorate eating patterns. Pathophysiological and therapeutic implications of these insights need further validation via prospective clinical trials and neuroimaging studies. View Show abstract Sex, beauty and the orbitofrontal cortex Article Full-text available Mar 2007 INT J PSYCHOPHYSIOL Alumit Ishai Face perception is mediated by a distributed neural system in the human brain. Attention, memory and emotion modulate the neural activation evoked by faces, however the effects of gender and sexual orientation are currently unknown. To test whether subjects would respond more to their sexually-preferred faces, we scanned 40 hetero- and homosexual men and women whilst they assessed facial attractiveness. Behaviorally, regardless of their gender and sexual orientation, all subjects similarly rated the attractiveness of both male and female faces. Consistent with our hypothesis, a three-way interaction between stimulus gender, beauty and the sexual preference of the subject was found in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). In heterosexual women and homosexual men, attractive male faces elicited stronger activation than attractive female faces, whereas in heterosexual men and homosexual women, attractive female faces evoked stronger activation than attractive male faces. These findings suggest that the OFC represents the value of salient sexually-relevant faces, irrespective of their reproductive fitness. View Show abstract Neural Coding of Reward-Prediction Error Signals During Classical Conditioning With Attractive Faces Article Full-text available May 2007 J NEUROPHYSIOL Signe Bray John P O'Doherty Attractive faces can be considered to be a form of visual reward. Previous imaging studies have reported activity in reward structures including orbitofrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens during presentation of attractive faces. Given that these stimuli appear to act as rewards, we set out to explore whether it was possible to establish conditioning in human subjects by pairing presentation of arbitrary affectively neutral stimuli with subsequent presentation of attractive and unattractive faces. Furthermore, we scanned human subjects with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they underwent this conditioning procedure to determine whether a reward-prediction error signal is engaged during learning with attractive faces as is known to be the case for learning with other types of reward such as juice and money. Subjects showed changes in behavioral ratings to the conditioned stimuli (CS) when comparing post- to preconditioning evaluations, notably for those CSs paired with attractive female faces. We used a simple Rescorla-Wagner learning model to generate a reward-prediction error signal and entered this into a regression analysis with the fMRI data. We found significant prediction error-related activity in the ventral striatum during conditioning with attractive compared with unattractive faces. These findings suggest that an arbitrary stimulus can acquire conditioned value by being paired with pleasant visual stimuli just as with other types of reward such as money or juice. This learning process elicits a reward-prediction error signal in a main target structure of dopamine neurons: the ventral striatum. The findings we describe here may provide insights into the neural mechanisms tapped into by advertisers seeking to influence behavioral preferences by repeatedly exposing consumers to simple associations between products and rewarding visual stimuli such as pretty faces. View Show abstract The debate over dopamine's role in reward: The case for incentive salience Article Apr 2007 PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY Kent C Berridge Introduction: Debate continues over the precise causal contribution made by mesolimbic dopamine systems to reward. There are three competing explanatory categories: 'liking', learning, and 'wanting'. Does dopamine mostly mediate the hedonic impact of reward ('liking')? Does it instead mediate learned predictions of future reward, prediction error teaching signals and stamp in associative links (learning)? Or does dopamine motivate the pursuit of rewards by attributing incentive salience to reward-related stimuli ('wanting')? Each hypothesis is evaluated here, and it is suggested that the incentive salience or 'wanting' hypothesis of dopamine function may be consistent with more evidence than either learning or 'liking'. In brief, recent evidence indicates that dopamine is neither necessary nor sufficient to mediate changes in hedonic 'liking' for sensory pleasures. Other recent evidence indicates that dopamine is not needed for new learning, and not sufficient to directly mediate learning by causing teaching or prediction signals. By contrast, growing evidence indicates that dopamine does contribute causally to incentive salience. Dopamine appears necessary for normal 'wanting', and dopamine activation can be sufficient to enhance cue-triggered incentive salience. Drugs of abuse that promote dopamine signals short circuit and sensitize dynamic mesolimbic mechanisms that evolved to attribute incentive salience to rewards. Such drugs interact with incentive salience integrations of Pavlovian associative information with physiological state signals. That interaction sets the stage to cause compulsive 'wanting' in addiction, but also provides opportunities for experiments to disentangle 'wanting', 'liking', and learning hypotheses. Results from studies that exploited those opportunities are described here. Conclusion: In short, dopamine's contribution appears to be chiefly to cause 'wanting' for hedonic rewards, more than 'liking' or learning for those rewards. View Show abstract Attitudes Toward Handicapped Children: Article Jan 1985 Phys Occup Ther Pediatr Elnora M. Gilfoyle Jeffrey A. Gliner Positive attitudes toward handicapped children are paramount for success in mainstreaming. In this study, attitude change toward handicapped children as judged by their nonhangicapped peers were investigated. An educational puppet show was used as the independent variable in this study. Results as measured by pre-to-post test changes on a visual analogue scale, demonstrated significant increase in students' information gain about handicapped peers; however, items suggesting personal feelings and behavior were not altered. Furthermore, a stable order of preference toward the physically handicapped remained on the post test. Implication from this study indicate the important of long term structured learning experience and direct contact as necessary variables for attitude change toward the handicapped. View Show abstract The Descent of Man and Selection In Relation To Sex Article Jan 1871 Charles R. Darwin In the current resurgence of interest in the biological basis of animal behavior and social organization, the ideas and questions pursued by Charles Darwin remain fresh and insightful. This is especially true of The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Darwin's second most important work. This edition is a facsimile reprint of the first printing of the first edition (1871), not previously available in paperback. The work is divided into two parts. Part One marshals behavioral and morphological evidence to argue that humans evolved from other animals. Darwin shoes that human mental and emotional capacities, far from making human beings unique, are evidence of an animal origin and evolutionary development. Part Two is an extended discussion of the differences between the sexes of many species and how they arose as a result of selection. Here Darwin lays the foundation for much contemporary research by arguing that many characteristics of animals have evolved not in response to the selective pressures exerted by their physical and biological environment, but rather to confer an advantage in sexual competition. These two themes are drawn together in two final chapters on the role of sexual selection in humans. In their Introduction, Professors Bonner and May discuss the place of The Descent in its own time and relation to current work in biology and other disciplines. View Show abstract Civilization and Its Discontents Article Jan 1930 Sigmund Freud View Measuring the Physical in Physical Attractiveness. Quasi-Experiments on the Sociobiology of Female Facial Beauty Article May 1986 J PERS SOC PSYCHOL Michael Cunningham Investigated, in 2 quasi-experiments, the relation between specific adult female facial features and the attraction, attribution, and altruistic responses of adult males. Precise measurements were obtained of the relative size of 24 facial features in an international sample of photographs of 50 females. 75 undergraduate males provided ratings of the attractiveness of each of the females. Positively correlated with attractiveness ratings were the neonate features of large eyes, small nose, and small chin; the maturity features of prominent cheekbones and narrow cheeks; and the expressive features of high eyebrows, large pupils, and large smile. A 2nd study asked males to rate the personal characteristics of 16 previously measured females. The males were also asked to indicate the females for whom they would be most inclined to perform altruistic behaviors and to select for dating, sexual behavior, and childrearing. The 2nd study replicated the correlations of feature measurements with attractiveness. Facial features also predicted personality attributions, altruistic inclinations, and reproductive interest. Sociobiological interpretations are discussed. (73 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved) View Show abstract Structured clinical interview for DSM-IV-TR Axis I Disorders, Research Version, Non-patient Edition Chapter Jan 2002 Michael B First Robert L. Spitzer M Gibbon Janet B W Williams View The evolution of human sexuality revisited Book Jan 1979 Behav Brain Sci Donald Symons Patterns in the data on human sexuality support the hypothesis that the bases of sexual emotions are products of natural selection. Most generally, the universal existence of laws, rules, and gossip about sex, the pervasive interest in other people's sex lives, the widespread seeking of privacy for sexual intercourse, and the secrecy that normally permeates sexual conduct imply a history of reproductive competition. More specifically, the typical differences between men and women in sexual feelings can be explained most parsimoniously as resulting from the extraordinarily different reproductive opportunities and constraints males and females normally encountered during the course of evolutionary history. Men are more likely than women to desire multiple mates; to desire a variety of sexual partners; to experience sexual jealousy of a spouse irrespective of specific circumstances; to be sexually aroused by the sight of a member of the other sex; to experience an autonomous desire for sexual intercourse; and to evaluate sexual desirability primarily on the bases of physical appearance and youth. The evolutionary causes of human sexuality have been obscured by attempts to find harmony in natural creative processes and human social life and to view sex differences as complementary. The human female's capacity for orgasm and the loss of estrus, for example, have been persistently interpreted as marriage-maintaining adaptations. Available evidence is more consistent with the view that few sex differences in sexuality are complementary, that many aspects of sexuality undermine marriage, and that sexuality is less a unifying than a divisive force in human affairs. View Show abstract Sexual orientation: A multivariate dynamic process. Journal of Homosexuality, 11, 35-49 Article Feb 1985 J HOMOSEXUAL Fritz Klein Barry Sepekoff Timothy J. Wolf Theory and research concerning sexual orientation has been restricted in its scope and influence by the lack of clear and widely accepted definitions of terms like heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual. In an attempt to better demarcate and understand the complexities of human sexual attitudes, emotions, and behavior, the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid (KSOG) was developed and administered. The KSOG is composed of seven variables that are dimensions of sexual orientation, each of which is rated by the subject as applying to the present, past, or ideal. Analysis of the data from subjects who filled out the KSOG in Forum Magazine indicated that the instrument was a reliable and valid research tool which took into consideration the multi-variable and dynamic aspects of sexual orientation. View Show abstract Beautiful Faces Have Variable Reward Value: fMRI and Behavioral Evidence. Article Dec 2001 NEURON Itzhak Aharon Nancy L Etcoff Dan Ariely Hans Breiter The brain circuitry processing rewarding and aversive stimuli is hypothesized to be at the core of motivated behavior. In this study, discrete categories of beautiful faces are shown to have differing reward values and to differentially activate reward circuitry in human subjects. In particular, young heterosexual males rate pictures of beautiful males and females as attractive, but exert effort via a keypress procedure only to view pictures of attractive females. Functional magnetic resonance imaging at 3 T shows that passive viewing of beautiful female faces activates reward circuitry, in particular the nucleus accumbens. An extended set of subcortical and paralimbic reward regions also appear to follow aspects of the keypress rather than the rating procedures, suggesting that reward circuitry function does not include aesthetic assessment. View Show abstract O'Doherty J, Winston J, Critchley H, Perrett D, Burt DM, Dolan RJ. Beauty in a smile: the role of medial orbitofrontal cortex in facial attractiveness. Neuropsychologia 41: 147-155 Article Feb 2003 NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA John P O'Doherty Joel S Winston Hugo Critchley Raymond J Dolan The attractiveness of a face is a highly salient social signal, influencing mate choice and other social judgements. In this study, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate brain regions that respond to attractive faces which manifested either a neutral or mildly happy face expression. Attractive faces produced activation of medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a region involved in representing stimulus-reward value. Responses in this region were further enhanced by a smiling facial expression, suggesting that the reward value of an attractive face as indexed by medial OFC activity is modulated by a perceiver directed smile. View Show abstract Psychosis as a State of Aberrant Salience: A Framework Linking Biology, Phenomenology, and Pharmacology in Schizophrenia Article Feb 2003 AM J PSYCHIAT Shitij Kapur The clinical hallmark of schizophrenia is psychosis. The objective of this overview is to link the neurobiology (brain), the phenomenological experience (mind), and pharmacological aspects of psychosis-in-schizophrenia into a unitary framework. Current ideas regarding the neurobiology and phenomenology of psychosis and schizophrenia, the role of dopamine, and the mechanism of action of antipsychotic medication were integrated to develop this framework. A central role of dopamine is to mediate the "salience" of environmental events and internal representations. It is proposed that a dysregulated, hyperdopaminergic state, at a "brain" level of description and analysis, leads to an aberrant assignment of salience to the elements of one's experience, at a "mind" level. Delusions are a cognitive effort by the patient to make sense of these aberrantly salient experiences, whereas hallucinations reflect a direct experience of the aberrant salience of internal representations. Antipsychotics "dampen the salience" of these abnormal experiences and by doing so permit the resolution of symptoms. The antipsychotics do not erase the symptoms but provide the platform for a process of psychological resolution. However, if antipsychotic treatment is stopped, the dysregulated neurochemistry returns, the dormant ideas and experiences become reinvested with aberrant salience, and a relapse occurs. The article provides a heuristic framework for linking the psychological and biological in psychosis. Predictions of this hypothesis, particularly regarding the possibility of synergy between psychological and pharmacological therapies, are presented. The author describes how the hypothesis is complementary to other ideas about psychosis and also discusses its limitations. View Show abstract Beauty in the Brain of the Beholder Article Jun 2003 NEURON Carl Senior Facial beauty is an honest signal of the genotypic and phenotypic quality of the bearer. Beautiful people are thus regarded as high-value mates who maximize reproductive success by producing viable offspring. Here, the functional neuroanatomy of facial beauty is reviewed and placed into the context of the distributed model for human face perception. A proposed extension of the distributed model is provided, which takes into account the neuroanatomy of beautiful face perception. View Show abstract Pleasures of the brain Article Jul 2003 BRAIN COGNITION Kent C Berridge How does the brain cause positive affective reactions to sensory pleasure? An answer to pleasure causation requires knowing not only which brain systems are activated by pleasant stimuli, but also which systems actually cause their positive affective properties. This paper focuses on brain causation of behavioral positive affective reactions to pleasant sensations, such as sweet tastes. Its goal is to understand how brain systems generate 'liking,' the core process that underlies sensory pleasure and causes positive affective reactions. Evidence suggests activity in a subcortical network involving portions of the nucleus accumbens shell, ventral pallidum, and brainstem causes 'liking' and positive affective reactions to sweet tastes. Lesions of ventral pallidum also impair normal sensory pleasure. Recent findings regarding this subcortical network's causation of core 'liking' reactions help clarify how the essence of a pleasure gloss gets added to mere sensation. The same subcortical 'liking' network, via connection to brain systems involved in explicit cognitive representations, may also in turn cause conscious experiences of sensory pleasure. View Show abstract Parsing Reward Article Oct 2003 TRENDS NEUROSCI Kent C Berridge Terry E. Robinson Advances in neurobiology permit neuroscientists to manipulate specific brain molecules, neurons and systems. This has lead to major advances in the neuroscience of reward. Here, it is argued that further advances will require equal sophistication in parsing reward into its specific psychological components: (1) learning (including explicit and implicit knowledge produced by associative conditioning and cognitive processes); (2) affect or emotion (implicit 'liking' and conscious pleasure) and (3) motivation (implicit incentive salience 'wanting' and cognitive incentive goals). The challenge is to identify how different brain circuits mediate different psychological components of reward, and how these components interact. View Show abstract Do Pretty Women Inspire Men to Discount the Future Article Jun 2004 Proc Biol Sci Margo Wilson Martin Daly Organisms 'discount the future' when they value imminent goods over future goods. Optimal discounting varies: selection should favour allocations of effort that effectively discount the future relatively steeply in response to cues promising relatively good returns on present efforts. However, research on human discounting has hitherto focused on stable individual differences rather than situational effects. In two experiments, discounting was assessed on the basis of choices between a smaller sum of money tomorrow and a larger sum at a later date, both before and after subjects rated the 'appeal' of 12 photographs. In experiment 1, men and women saw either attractive or unattractive opposite-sex faces; in experiment 2, participants saw more or less appealing cars. As predicted, discounting increased significantly in men who viewed attractive women, but not in men who viewed unattractive women or women who viewed men; viewing cars produced a different pattern of results. View Show abstract Probing reward function in post-traumatic stress disorder with beautiful facial images Article Jul 2005 PSYCHIAT RES Igor Elman Dan Ariely Nina Mazar Pitman Roger Reward dysfunction may be implicated in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This study applied a behavioral probe, known to activate brain reward regions, to subjects with PTSD. Male heterosexual Vietnam veterans with (n = 12) or without (n = 11) current PTSD were administered two tasks: (a) key pressing to change the viewing time of average or beautiful female or male facial images, and (b) rating the attractiveness of these images. There were no significant group differences in the attractiveness ratings. However, PTSD patients expended less effort to extend the viewing time of the beautiful female faces. These findings suggest a reward deficit in PTSD. View Show abstract A sex difference in features that elicit genital response Article Nov 2005 BIOL PSYCHOL Meredith L. Chivers J. Michael Bailey Previous research suggests that women's genital arousal is an automatic response to sexual stimuli, whereas men's genital arousal is dependent upon stimulus features specific to their sexual interests. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that a nonhuman sexual stimulus would elicit a genital response in women but not in men. Eighteen heterosexual women and 18 heterosexual men viewed seven sexual film stimuli, six human films and one nonhuman primate film, while measurements of genital and subjective sexual arousal were recorded. Women showed small increases in genital arousal to the nonhuman stimulus and large increases in genital arousal to both human male and female stimuli. Men did not show any genital arousal to the nonhuman stimulus and demonstrated a category-specific pattern of arousal to the human stimuli that corresponded to their stated sexual orientation. These results suggest that stimulus features necessary to evoke genital arousal are much less specific in women than in men. View Show abstract A Neurobehavioral Model of Affiliative Bonding: Implications for Conceptualizing a Human Trait of Affiliation Article Jul 2005 BEHAV BRAIN SCI Richard A. Depue Jeannine V. Morrone-Strupinsky Because little is known about the human trait of affiliation, we provide a novel neurobehavioral model of affiliative bonding. Discussion is organized around processes of reward and memory formation that occur during approach and consummatory phases of affiliation. Appetitive and consummatory reward processes are mediated independently by the activity of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine (DA)-nucleus accumbens shell (NAS) pathway and the central corticolimbic projections of the u-opiate system of the medial basal arcuate nucleus, respectively, although these two projection systems functionally interact across time. We next explicate the manner in which DA and glutamate interact in both the VTA and NAS to form incentive-encoded contextual memory ensembles that are predictive of reward derived from affiliative objects. Affiliative stimuli, in particular, are incorporated within contextual ensembles predictive of affiliative reward via: (a) the binding of affiliative stimuli in the rostral circuit of the medial extended amygdala and subsequent transmission to the NAS shell; (b) affiliative stimulus-induced opiate potentiation of DA processes in the VTA and NAS; and (c) permissive or facilitatory effects of gonadal steroids, oxytocin (in interaction with DA), and vasopressin on (i) sensory, perceptual, and attentional processing of affiliative stimuli and (ii) formation of social memories. Among these various processes, we propose that the capacity to experience affiliative reward via opiate functioning has a disproportionate weight in determining individual differences in affiliation. We delineate sources of these individual differences, and provide the first human data that support an association between opiate functioning and variation in trait affiliation. View Show abstract The Evolutionary Psychology of Facial Beauty Article Feb 2006 ANNU REV PSYCHOL Gillian Rhodes What makes a face attractive and why do we have the preferences we do? Emergence of preferences early in development and cross-cultural agreement on attractiveness challenge a long-held view that our preferences reflect arbitrary standards of beauty set by cultures. Averageness, symmetry, and sexual dimorphism are good candidates for biologically based standards of beauty. A critical review and meta-analyses indicate that all three are attractive in both male and female faces and across cultures. Theorists have proposed that face preferences may be adaptations for mate choice because attractive traits signal important aspects of mate quality, such as health. Others have argued that they may simply be by-products of the way brains process information. Although often presented as alternatives, I argue that both kinds of selection pressures may have shaped our perceptions of facial beauty. View Show abstract Face Perception Is Modulated by Sexual Preference Article Feb 2006 CURR BIOL Felicitas Kranz Alumit Ishai Face perception is mediated by a distributed neural system in the human brain . The response to faces is modulated by cognitive factors such as attention, visual imagery, and emotion ; however, the effects of gender and sexual orientation are currently unknown. We used fMRI to test whether subjects would respond more to their sexually preferred faces and predicted such modulation in the reward circuitry. Forty heterosexual and homosexual men and women viewed photographs of male and female faces and assessed facial attractiveness. Regardless of their gender and sexual orientation, all subjects similarly rated the attractiveness of both male and female faces. Within multiple, bilateral face-selective regions in the visual cortex, limbic system, and prefrontal cortex, similar patterns of activation were found in all subjects in response to both male and female faces. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found a significant interaction between stimulus gender and the sexual preference of the subject in the thalamus and medial orbitofrontal cortex, where heterosexual men and homosexual women responded more to female faces and heterosexual women and homosexual men responded more to male faces. Our findings suggest that sexual preference modulates face-evoked activation in the reward circuitry. View Show abstract Compulsive drug use linked to sensitized ventral striatal dopamine transmission Article May 2006 ANN NEUROL Andrew H Evans Nicola Pavese Andrew David Lawrence Paola Piccini A small group of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients compulsively use dopaminergic drugs despite causing harmful social, psychological, and physical effects and fulfil core Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (of Mental Disorders) Fourth Edition criteria for substance dependence (dopamine dysregulation syndrome [DDS]). We aimed to evaluate levodopa-induced dopamine neurotransmission in the striatum of patients with DDS compared with PD control patients. We used a two-scan positron emission tomography protocol to calculate the percentage change in (11)C-raclopride binding potential from a baseline withdrawal (off drug) state to the binding potential after an oral dose of levodopa. We related the subjective effects of levodopa to the effects on endogenous dopamine release of a pharmacological challenge with levodopa in eight control PD patients and eight patients with DDS. PD patients with DDS exhibited enhanced levodopa-induced ventral striatal dopamine release compared with levodopa-treated patients with PD not compulsively taking dopaminergic drugs. The sensitized ventral striatal dopamine neurotransmission produced by levodopa in these individuals correlated with self-reported compulsive drug "wanting" but not "liking" and was related to heightened psychomotor activation (punding). This provides evidence that links sensitization of ventral striatal circuitry in humans to compulsive drug use. View Show abstract Is it possible to dissociate ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’ for foods in humans? A novel experimental procedure Article Feb 2007 PHYSIOL BEHAV Graham Finlayson Neil King John Blundell Berridge's model (e.g. [Berridge KC. Food reward: Brain substrates of wanting and liking. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 1996;20:1-25.; Berridge KC, Robinson T E. Parsing reward. Trends Neurosci 2003;26:507-513.; Berridge KC. Motivation concepts in behavioral neuroscience. Physiol Behav 2004;81:179-209]) outlines the brain substrates thought to mediate food reward with distinct 'liking' (hedonic/affective) and 'wanting' (incentive salience/motivation) components. Understanding the dual aspects of food reward could throw light on food choice, appetite control and overconsumption. The present study reports the development of a procedure to measure these processes in humans. A computer-based paradigm was used to assess 'liking' (through pleasantness ratings) and 'wanting' (through forced-choice photographic procedure) for foods that varied in fat (high or low) and taste (savoury or sweet). 60 participants completed the program when hungry and after an ad libitum meal. Findings indicate a state (hungry-satiated)-dependent, partial dissociation between 'liking' and 'wanting' for generic food categories. In the hungry state, participants 'wanted' high-fat savoury>low-fat savoury with no corresponding difference in 'liking', and 'liked' high-fat sweet>low-fat sweet but did not differ in 'wanting' for these foods. In the satiated state, participants 'liked', but did not 'want', high-fat savoury>low-fat savoury, and 'wanted' but did not 'like' low-fat sweet>high-fat sweet. More differences in 'liking' and 'wanting' were observed when hungry than when satiated. This procedure provides the first step in proof of concept that 'liking' and 'wanting' can be dissociated in humans and can be further developed for foods varying along different dimensions. Other experimental procedures may also be devised to separate 'liking' and 'wanting'. View Show abstract Berridge KC. The debate over dopamine’s role in reward: the case for incentive salience. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 191: 391-431 Article May 2007 PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY Kent C Berridge INTRODUCTION: Debate continues over the precise causal contribution made by mesolimbic dopamine systems to reward. There are three competing explanatory categories: 'liking', learning, and 'wanting'. Does dopamine mostly mediate the hedonic impact of reward ('liking')? Does it instead mediate learned predictions of future reward, prediction error teaching signals and stamp in associative links (learning)? Or does dopamine motivate the pursuit of rewards by attributing incentive salience to reward-related stimuli ('wanting')? Each hypothesis is evaluated here, and it is suggested that the incentive salience or 'wanting' hypothesis of dopamine function may be consistent with more evidence than either learning or 'liking'. In brief, recent evidence indicates that dopamine is neither necessary nor sufficient to mediate changes in hedonic 'liking' for sensory pleasures. Other recent evidence indicates that dopamine is not needed for new learning, and not sufficient to directly mediate learning by causing teaching or prediction signals. By contrast, growing evidence indicates that dopamine does contribute causally to incentive salience. Dopamine appears necessary for normal 'wanting', and dopamine activation can be sufficient to enhance cue-triggered incentive salience. Drugs of abuse that promote dopamine signals short circuit and sensitize dynamic mesolimbic mechanisms that evolved to attribute incentive salience to rewards. Such drugs interact with incentive salience integrations of Pavlovian associative information with physiological state signals. That interaction sets the stage to cause compulsive 'wanting' in addiction, but also provides opportunities for experiments to disentangle 'wanting', 'liking', and learning hypotheses. Results from studies that exploited those opportunities are described here. CONCLUSION: In short, dopamine's contribution appears to be chiefly to cause 'wanting' for hedonic rewards, more than 'liking' or learning for those rewards. View Show abstract Ventral striatal control of appetitive motivation: Role in ingestive behavior and reward-related learning Article Feb 2004 NEUROSCI BIOBEHAV R Ann E Kelley The nucleus accumbens is a brain region that participates in the control of behaviors related to natural reinforcers, such as ingestion, sexual behavior, incentive and instrumental learning, and that also plays a role in addictive processes. This paper comprises a review of work from our laboratory that focuses on two main research areas: (i). the role of the nucleus accumbens in food motivation, and (ii). its putative functions in cellular plasticity underlying appetitive learning. First, work within a number of different behavioral paradigms has shown that accumbens neurochemical systems play specific and dissociable roles in different aspects of food seeking and food intake, and part of this function depends on integration with the lateral hypothalamus and amygdala. We propose that the nucleus accumbens integrates information related to cognitive, sensory, and emotional processing with hypothalamic mechanisms mediating energy balance. This system as a whole enables complex hierarchical control of adaptive ingestive behavior. Regarding the second research area, our studies examining acquisition of lever-pressing for food in rats have shown that activation of glutamate N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, within broadly distributed but interconnected regions (nucleus accumbens core, posterior striatum, prefrontal cortex, basolateral and central amygdala), is critical for such learning to occur. This receptor stimulation triggers intracellular cascades that involve protein phosphorylation and new protein synthesis. It is hypothesized that activity in this distributed network (including D1 receptor activity) computes coincident events and thus enhances the probability that temporally related actions and events (e.g. lever pressing and delivery of reward) become associated. Such basic mechanisms of plasticity within this reinforcement learning network also appear to be profoundly affected in addiction. View Show abstract Love relations: Normality and pathology Jan 1995 O Kernberg Kernberg, O. (1995). Love relations: Normality and pathology. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Beauty in a smile: The role of medial orbitofrontal cortex in facial attractiveness Jan 2003 147-155 O ' Doherty J Winston J Critchley H Perrett D Burt D M Dolan O'Doherty, J., Winston, J., Critchley, H., Perrett, D., Burt, D. M., & Dolan, R. J. (2003). Beauty in a smile: The role of medial orbitofrontal cortex in facial attractiveness. Neuropsychologia, 41, 147–155. Jan 2000 S E Taylor L C Klein B P Lewis T L Gruenewald R A Gurung Updegraff Taylor, S. E., Klein, L. C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A., & Updegraff, J. A. (2000). Recommended publications Discover more Article Multidimensional Evaluation of Monetary Incentive Strategies for Weight Control April 1994 · The Psychological record Brian E. Mavis Bertram E. Stöffelmayr This study compares the effectiveness of five monetary incentive strategies in the context of a behavioral weight management program. Four weight-contingent strategies were used: (a) continuous positive reinforcement; (b) monetary response cost; (c) positive reinforcement with a lottery system; and (d) response cost with a lottery system. For comparison, a fifth group was based on an ... [Show full abstract] attendance-contingent monetary reward condition. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of five groups and participated in a 10-session/14-week behavioral weight loss program. Twelve behavioral and attitudinal criteria were used to compare the programs, related to weight loss, self-efficacy, program acceptance, dropout, and maintenance activities. Differences among the monetary contingencies were found for weekly weight goal attainment, dropout rate, participation in subsequent maintenance activities, perceived program reactance, group satisfaction, and satisfaction with the incentive strategy. The results demonstrate the broad effects beyond the contractually specified contingencies, which can influence participant performance, and support the use of monetary reward incentive procedures. Read more Article Full-text available Dopamine and addiction: a couple between the reason and irrationality December 2005 · Biofutur Serge H Ahmed View full-text Article Components of the Behavioral Activation System and Functional Impulsivity: A test of discriminant hy... December 2009 · Journal of Research in Personality Luigi Leone Paolo Maria Russo It has recently been suggested that the concept of Functional Impulsivity bears some similarity to the sensitivity of the Behavioral Activation System (BAS; Smillie & Jackson, 2006). In the present research we take a closer look at this idea, testing more specific hypotheses on the associations of different BAS-related components with Functional and Dysfunctional Impulsivity. Analyzing a sample ... [Show full abstract] of 719, we found that the Drive component was uniquely connected with Functional Impulsivity, and Fun Seeking was linked to both impulsivities, but more weakly so to Functional Impulsivity compared with Drive. Reward Responsiveness was unrelated to Impulsivity. Implications for the conceptualization of Functional Impulsivity and for a complex view of BAS-related functions are addressed. Read more Article The Specific Role of Dopamine in the Striatum during Operant Learning December 2015 · Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology Natalia Ivlieva D. A. Ivliev The role of dopamine in behavior is in a state of permanent controversy. The notion of ‘prediction error’ is a central component in current reward-based models of learning, but there are many caveats and contradictions in the supporting data. In this paper we propose that the same dopamine signal can both promote an action and reinforce it and we outline a novel model of reward-based learning in ... [Show full abstract] which dopamine operates as a teaching signal with DA release starting well before and persisting beyond the action being reinforced. The post-response signal providing the true excitatory drive for long-term potentiation (LTP) comes from the intralaminar nuclei of the thalamus. The main component of this hypothetical mechanism is the direct striatal projection neuron pathway, while there are indications that the indirect pathway is fundamentally able to modulate the direct pathway, thus providing behavioral flexibility. Read more Last Updated: 04 Dec 2020 Looking for the full-text? You can request the full-text of this article directly from the authors on ResearchGate. Request full-text Already a member? Log in ResearchGate iOS App Get it from the App Store now. Install Keep up with your stats and more Access scientific knowledge from anywhere or Discover by subject area Recruit researchers Join for free LoginEmail Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login PasswordForgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with LinkedIn Continue with Google Welcome back! 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