Hemispheric Specialization in

the Assessment of Female

Physical Attractiveness
Introduction
Judgements of female physical
attractiveness have long been the focus
of scientific inquiry.
In particular, evolutionary approaches to
the analysis of physical attractiveness
have commanded considerable interest
in the last few decades.
However, little is known about the
neural and cognitive specializations that
are involved in judgements of physical
attractiveness.
Evolutionary Perspective
According to evolutionary theories of mate selection, members of the
opposite sex are attracted to physical traits that are indicative of fertility
and the presence of good genes (Kirkpatrick, 1996).

Hence, female physical traits are predicted to be associated with female

reproductive health.
AGE (Buss, 1989; Singh, 1995; Symons, 1995),
SYMMETRY (Grammer & Thornhill, 1994; Little & Jones, 2003),
AVERAGENESS (Perrett et al., 1998; Rhodes, 2006),
BREAST SIZE (Furnham, Dias, & McClelland, 1998; Gallup, 1982),
HAIR COLOR (Cunningham, Druen, & Barbee, 1997),
VOLUME HEIGHT INDEX (Fan, Liu, Wu, & Dai, 2004),
LEG-TO-BODY RATIO (Sorokowski et al., 2011),
BODY MASS INDEX (BMI; Tovee, Maisey, Emery, & Cornelissen, 1999),
WAIST-TO-HIP RATIO (WHR; Buggio et al., 2012; Singh, 1993a, 1993b),

WHR & BMI
Numerous studies have shown a
relationship between BMI and WHR
and male ratings of female
attractiveness and female
reproductive status.
WHR & BMI
Slender women are generally perceived to be more attractive (Hume
& Montgomerie, 2001; Singh, 2004; Smith, Cornelissen, & Tove, 2007; Swami, Caprario, Tove, &
Furnham, 2006; Tovee et al., 1999; Weeden & Sabini, 2005).

Females with lower WHRs (around 0.7) are generally rated as more
attractive (Marlowe, Apicella, & Reed, 2005; Singh, 1993a, 1993b, 2004; Singh, Dixson, Jessop,
Morgan, & Dixson, 2010; Weeden & Sabini, 2005).

Women with relatively low WHR and BMI are rated as the most
attractive (Dural, etinkaya, & Glbetekin, 2008; Furnham, Lavancy, & McClelland, 2001;
Furnham, Tan, & McManus, 1997; Henss, 1995, 2000; Kociski, 2014; Singh, 1993a, 1994a, 1994b,
1994c, 1995; Singh & Luis, 1995; Singh & Young, 1995; Streeter & McBurney, 2003).

BMI and WHR also have been found to be honest indicators of

womens
age (Singh & Randall, 2007; Zaadstra et al., 1993),
health status (Mrkedal, Romundstad, & Vatten, 2011; Yusuf et al., 2005),
fertility and reproductive value (Singh, 1993a; Zaadstra et al., 1993),
sexiness (Brody & Weiss, 2013; Platek & Singh, 2010)
cognitive abilities (Lassek & Gaulin, 2008).
A Proposal
Probably current human beings are descendants of ancestors who
were able to evaluate BMI and WHR more successfully than those
who were indifferent to them.

Thus, humans probably evolved psychological mechanisms that

operate reliably, efficiently, economically and with precision to
assess BMI and WHR as they faced social situations associated with
reproduction.

This ability might be considered as an evolved feature design given

its generality and culture independent utilities.

As a matter of fact, it was evidenced that even congenitally blind

men who have never seen or never been exposed to a female
figure also evaluated women with the same attributes as more
attractive (Karremans, Frankenhuis, & Arons, 2010).
A Proposal
Because many of the adaptive problems differed between the
sexes, men and women evolved different psychological
mechanisms as adaptive solutions.

For example, although both men and women prefer sexually

attractive partners, this preference is more important for men than
for women (Buss, 1989; Feingold, 1990; Hatfield & Sprecher, 1995;
Li, Bailey, Kenrick, & Linsenmeier, 2002; Oda, 2001).

In a neuroimaging study, Aharon et al. (2001) found that attractive

female faces activate reward pathways (Nac, Orbitofrontal cortex,
VT, Sublenticular Amygdala) in men more than attractive males or
unattractive faces of either sex.

Aharon, I., Etcoff, N., Ariely, D., Chabris, C. F., OConnor, E., & Breiter, H. C. (2001).
Beautiful faces have variable reward value: fMRI and behavioral evidence.
Neuron, 32, 537551.
A Proposal
While a man can increase his reproductive success by pursuing a
woman who is physically attractive, a woman may achieve better
reproductive benefit from mating with a man who is willing to
provide resources necessary for raising offspring (Symons, 1979).

These psychological mechanisms formed the bases for men and

women to adopt different mate and mating preferences (Geary,
Vigil, & Byrd-Craven, 2004).
A Proposal
Although there is considerable consensus concerning the role
of WHR and body weight (BW) in mens evaluations of female
physical attractiveness, little empirical effort has addressed
systematically the cognitive and neural processes underlying
evaluation of physical attractiveness.

Schtzwohl (2006):
Which of the two women appears more attractive to you?;
Which of the two women appears more healthy to you?;
Which of the two women appears more fecund to you?;
Which of the two women appears to you less likely as being
pregnant?

Schtzwohl (2006) was the first to show that male judgements

of female physical attractiveness presumably are relied on
"quick and dirty decision processes (LeDoux, 1996)

Schtzwohl, A. (2006). Judging female figures: A new methodological approach to male

attractiveness judgments of female waist-to-hip ratio. Biological Psychology, 71, 223229.
A Proposal
Kociski (2014) obtained the same findings by using digital
silhouettes of female figures instead of using figures with extra
bodily details.

Both studies suggest that human males may have specialized

cognitive mechanisms to process such slice of social
information reliably and efficiently.

However, neither of the studies has been expanded to

investigation of specialized cognitive and neural machinery
responsible for the psychological processes of judgements of
womens sexual attractiveness.

Kociski, K. (2014). Assessment of waist-to-hip ratio attractiveness in women: An

anthropometric analysis of digital silhouettes. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 43, 989997.
A Proposal
The standards of attractiveness are not arbitrary.
The selective pressures on organization of facial asymmetries
should have shaped the perception of beauty in the human
face, especially in relation to mate selection.
Zaidel et al. (1995) found that right faces of women were
judged as more attractive than their left faces, while no similar
perceptual asymmetry was found for mens faces.
A Proposal
The sex difference obtained in Zaidel et al. (1995) in facial physiognomy may be
related to sex differences in brain asymmetry in men.

Studies with various cognitive tasks have found that men show greater functional
brain asymmetry than women (Bayer, et al., 2008; Bourne & Maxwell, 2010;
Gizewski, et al., 2006).

This allows for the possibility that asymmetric facial signals from women have led
to greater functional brain asymmetry in how men judge facial beauty.

Unfortunately, to our knowledge there are only a few studies in the literature
concerning hemispheric asymmetry in judgements of physical attractiveness.
A Proposal
Mohr, Porter, and Benton (2007) The subjects
had to decide whether the visual target (which
was presented in either the left or the RVF in
random order) was fatter or thinner than a real
body/object.
A Proposal
Mohr, Porter, and Benton (2007) study is important
because it demonstrates that
There may be neuropsychological specializations
in bodily judgements.
There may be a sexual dimorphisms in the
processing of bodily images.
A Proposal
Winston, ODoherty, Kilner, Perrett,
and Dolan (2007) revealed that the
right amygdala plays a role in the
affective evaluation of
attractiveness.

They observed greater activity in

the right amygdala than the left
amygdala in response to highly
attractive and unattractive faces
compared to middle-ranked faces.
A Proposal
The present study was designed to investigate possible
laterality effects in evaluations of female physical
attractiveness by men and women subjects using the divided
visual field paradigm (Bourne, 2006).

A subset of the 3D female figures developed by Dural (2005)

was used as stimuli.

The figures were presented either in the right or in the LVF

and varied in BW and WHR.
Method
Subjects
Subjects were 80 female and 110 male self-identified
heterosexuals with a mean age of 21.05 (SD = 2.25).
All subjects were right-handed according to Edinburgh
Handedness Inventory (Oldfield, 1971).
Six subjects (four females and two males) were excluded
from the analyses because of failure to follow the
instructions.

Dural, S., etinkaya, H., & Glbetekin, E. (2008). The role of waist-to-hip ratio in evaluation of
female physical attractiveness: Eye-tracker data. Turkish Journal of Psychology, 23, 8991.
Method
Stimuli
A subset of 3D female figures developed by Dural (2008)
M = 4.11 (SE = .11) M = 3.88 (SE = .11)
was used as stimuli.
The subset of figures included in the present study
consisted of six figures in a matrix of 3 2 with three
BW levels (under, normal and over) and two WHR levels
(0.7 and 1.0).
These findings are inline with the previous studies on
WHR/BW-attractiveness. We used these attractiveness
M = 3.94 (SE = .11) M = 3.75 (SE = .11)
scores for the calculation of the accuracy scores.

M = 3.61 (SE = .12) M = 3.47 (SE = .13)

Method
Procedure
500msec

The six experimental female figures were

presented individually in each of the visual fields + 180msec
in random order.
Fixation
Hence, all subjects received 4 training trials and 100msec

12 experimental trials with 5-sec intertrial

intervals LVF/ RVF Response

Backward RT
Mask 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Attractiveness
5sec ITI rating
Results
Determining whether the subjects were able to
differentiate the female figures in terms of their
levels of attractiveness.

A 2 (male or female) 6 (under 0.7, under 1.0,

normal 0.7, normal 1.0, over 0.7 and over 1.0)
analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted.

No significant main effect of the sex of the

subjects, F(1, 182) = .28, MSE = 1.70, p > .05.

A significant main effect of the type of female

figure that was presented, F(5, 910) = 8.53, MSE =
6.26, p < .01, p2 = .05

A significant interaction between subject sex and

type of female stimulus, F(5, 910) = 7.62, MSE = 5.60,
p < .01, p2 = .04
Results
To examine the source of interaction between subject sex
and type of female stimulus, separate ANOVAs were
calculated for the male and female subjects.

These follow-up analyses revealed that there was a

significant difference among the attractiveness ratings for
the female figures provided by the male subjects, F(5, 535) =
18.93, MSE = 13.91, p < .01, p2 = .15.

However, there was no significant difference among the

attractiveness ratings for the female figures provided by
the female subjects, F(5, 375) = .42, MSE = .31, p > .05.

These findings suggested that the female subjects did not

differentiate among the female figures in their
attractiveness ratings, whereas the male subjects did.

Furthermore, the attractiveness ratings of the male

subjects were quite similar to the attractiveness scores
previously obtained for these figures
Results
A two-way repeated ANOVA was conducted
to determine the effects of LVF vs. RVF and
female figure type on the reaction times of
male subjects to provide an attractiveness
rating.

This analysis showed no main effect for LVF vs.

RVF, F(1, 107) = .07, MSE = 27,466.19, p > .05.

However, the main effect of female figure

type was significant, F(5, 535) = 2.58, MSE =
1,023,815.95, p < .01, p2 = .02, as was the
interaction effect for visual field and figure
type, F(5, 535) = 2.61, MSE = 1,062,320.28, p <
.01, p2 = .02
Results
As a follow-up to the significant interaction
effect that was obtained, separate repeated
ANOVAs were calculated for the RVF and LVF.

These analyses indicated that there was a

significant difference among the reaction
times to the figures when they were
presented in RVF, F(5, 535) = 3.25, MSE =
1,157,898.27, p < .01, p2 = .03.

However, there was no significant difference

among the reaction times to the figures when
they were presented in the LVF, F(5, 535) = 2.07,
MSE = 928,237.96, p > .05.
Results
In addition to reaction times, the attractiveness ratings of the male subjects were classified as
hits or misses depending on whether or not they fell into an accuracy interval based on
prior results with the female stimulus types that were tested.

An accuracy interval was determined for each test stimulus by taking the mean attractiveness
rating for each female stimulus provided by subjects in the study by Dural (2008) and adding and
subtracting the standard error of that mean.

Thus, we obtained an accuracy interval for each female figure whose lower and upper bounds
were determined by its own standard error.

These accuracy intervals were then used to determine whether a certain attractiveness score
provided by a subject in the present study fell into the accuracy interval calculated for that
particular female figure.

If the attractiveness score fell into the accuracy interval, this score was categorized as hit; if
not, it was categorized as miss.
Results
The distribution of hits and misses was sorted into a
22 table in which response type (hit or miss) was one
factor and whether the female stimulus was presented
in the LVF vs. RVF was the second factor.

Because the relative frequencies of hits and misses are

not continuous, the data in the 2 2 table were
evaluated with a chi-square. The chi-square test was
significant, 2(1) = 4.02, p < .05, indicating that the
proportions of hits and misses depended on which
visual field was used to observe the female stimuli.

The proportion of hits was greater for stimuli presented

in the RVF (left hemisphere LH) than for stimuli
presented in the LVF (right hemisphereRH).

Thus, LH was significantly more likely to be accurate

than RH in evaluating attractiveness.
Results
The results of the analyses carried out for both reaction time and
accuracy suggested that in evaluating attractiveness LH was
slower depending on attractiveness level of the figure, but it was
more accurate than RH.

To obtain a more comprehensible and interpretable explanation,

we examined reaction time and accuracy for the most attractive
(under 0.7) and the least attractive (over 1.0) figures, when they
were presented in the RVF.

Paired samples t-test revealed that reaction time for attractive

figure (M = 1944.38, SE = 73.47) was slower than reaction time
for unattractive figure (M = 1723.44, SE = 62.29), t(95) = 2.67, p <
.01, r = .27.

Finally, a 2 (under 0.7 and over 1.0) 2 (hit and miss) chi-square
test of independence indicated that the relation between
attractiveness and accuracy was found to be significant, 2(1) =
6.51, p < .01.

The attractive figure was significantly more likely determined

accurately by LH than the unattractive figure.
Discussion
The aim of the present study was to investigate hemispheric asymmetries in women and men in
evaluation of female body attractiveness by using the visual half-field technique.

One important feature of the present findings pertains to sex difference observed in attractiveness
judgements. The most behavioral studies have not provided evidence of sex difference in judgements
of female physical attractiveness. Contrary to previous behavioral studies, in present study, female
participants did not discriminate in their ratings of the various images.

Barash and Lipton (1997) compared the ability of men and women to recognize infant facial
expressions when close-up photographs of the faces of babies were flashed on a screen. Women
detected emotions such as surprise, disgust, anger, fear and distress more quickly and accurately
than men did.

However, there was no difference between men and women when the stimuli were presented for
longer durations.
Discussion
Unlike female subjects, males responded to differences among the female stimulus figures.
These findings lend further support to the evolutionary hypotheses that male judgements
of female attractiveness are influenced by the slenderness and hourglass shape of the
female stimuli.

The findings of the present study suggest that human males may have perceptual
mechanisms that facilitate identifying female body shapes associated with health, fecundity
and attractiveness.

Males who were able to detect and process cues reflecting attributes of a good mate were
more likely have offspring with better chances of survival and reproduction.
Discussion
Given the significant associations of female slender and hourglass body shapes with fecundity, levels
of reproductive hormones (Jasienska, Ziomkiewicz, Ellison, Lipson, & Thune, 2004), higher likelihood
of conception (Zaadstra et al., 1993), availability of neurodevelopmental resources for offspring
(Lassek & Gaulin, 2008), lower likelihood of various illnesses (Singh, 1993a) and lower incidence of
depression (Nelson, Palmer, Pedersen, & Miles, 1999), it is no wonder that men rate such body
shapes as more attractive.

Not only the male subjects were not able to identify attractiveness differences accurately, but also
they spent similar times evaluating the female figures with different attractiveness levels, when
the figures were presented in LVF-RH. Although they performed more slowly, they were significantly
better at identifying the attractiveness of the figures, when the figures were presented in RVF-LH.

Based on these results, it seemed that the LH is more likely to play a role in evaluation of female
physical attractiveness.

Interestingly, LH tended to detect the most attractive figure significantly more accurately than the
least attractive figure.