"Study Finds, US Women Look at Sex Pictures Longer and Harder Than Men"
Posting by Staff
link to story | permalink
 June 20, 2007
Men are more likely to look at a woman's face before other parts of the body when shown naked pictures, according to a study by US researchers.
The Emory University study also found women will look at pictures of heterosexual sex longer than men.
Both findings, published in the journal Hormones and Behaviour, make sense psychologically, Emory psychologist Kim Wallen told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Wallen and his former graduate student, Heather Rupp, showed still photos of couples having sex to 30 women and 15 men between the ages of 23 and 28. Each was rigged up with a high-tech eye-tracking device to measure where his or her gaze went first, and how long it stayed there.
Men went straight to the face and lingered for a while, but most of the women were more interested in the sexual activity. How much so depended on whether they were taking hormone-filled birth control pills.
Those who were, Wallen said, were interested in the overall view of the photos and background items like jewelery, but women not on the pill were more interested in areas normally covered by clothing.
"Eye-tracking data suggested that what women paid most attention to was dependent on their hormonal state," Rupp, now at Indiana University's Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, told the newspaper.
Wallen and Rupp said their study suggests that men's increased attention to faces may be related to higher activation in the amygdala, a portion of the brain that processes emotional information and excitement.
Women can tell by looking at naked men whether they are aroused, Wallen said, but female bodies do not reveal much.
"It's cryptic, but facial expression is one way of showing an indication of interest in and enjoyment of sex," Wallen told the paper. |
