Eye Movements When Looking at Potential Friends and Romantic Partners

Me looking at you, looking at me: The stare-in-the-crowd effect and autism spectrum disorder

INTRODUCTION

The stare-in-the-crowd (SITC) effect describes the ability to detect self-directed gaze in a crowd. Given the importance of gaze detection in initiating and maintaining social interactions, there is a need to better characterize the SITC effect.

METHODS

Autistic and neurotypical young adults were presented with four SITC conditions. Eye tracking outcomes and arousal were compared by diagnosis and condition using repeated measures analysis of variance. Hierarchical regression was used to explore behavioral measures.

RESULTS

Significant interaction of diagnosis and condition was found for eye tracking outcomes. Overall, autistic participants exhibited less looking than neurotypical participants. Interest area dwell time, fixation count, and second fixation duration were significantly higher for conditions with shifting gaze, as well as conditions with more self-directed gaze across participants. Two hierarchical regression models of gaze behaviors with advanced theory of mind as a predictor were significant.

DISCUSSION

Autistic individuals respond to various gaze conditions in similar patterns to neurotypical individuals, but to a lesser extent. These findings offer important targets for social interventions.

Eye Gaze Patterns of Decision Process in Prosocial Behavior

Understanding human behavior remains a grand challenge across disciplines. We used eye tracking to investigate how visual perception is associated with a strategic behavior in the decision process. Gaze activity and eye movement patterns were measured in 14 human participants with different decision strategies. We also employed a social domain to force strategic behavior. We find that social interaction significantly improves the level of cooperation, prosocial decisions, and overall cooperative strategy in experiment participants. Gaze behavior in individuals with a cooperative strategy is characterized by a greater number of fixations and frequent gaze returns to the scanned areas. On the contrary, individuals with a non-cooperative strategy approach decision-making task stimuli in a distinct way with long-duration fixations and a low number of gaze returns to the areas already scanned. Social domain, which enhances cooperation and prosocial behavior, makes participants more attentive to the task stimuli in our experiments. Moreover, prolonged gaze at the area of cooperative choice testifies in favor of the cooperative decision.

[Prospects for the use of a binocular eye tracking system for the diagnosis of pedophilic disorder]

BACKGROUND

The assessment of pedophilic disorder is one of the most complicated problems in forensic psychiatric practice.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the use of eye tracking to identify pedophilic disorder.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

One hundred people were stratified into a group of men with pedophilic disorder (n=43) and a group of people without clinical signs of pedophilia (n=57). Clinical, psychopathological, sexological and psychophysiological methods were used. Within the framework of a psychophysiological method, normative and deviant erotic stimuli were presented with simultaneous eye gaze recording.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

Methodological requirements to create the diagnostic visual tests, in the development of which the stimulus material should be highly standardized and take into account the color spectrum, size, content, as well as the emotional richness of the images, were suggested. Moreover, it was found that for the detection of paraphilic interest, it was very important to assess attention (involuntary and voluntary), based on the study of fixation activity: high rates of the total stimulus viewing time, duration of the first fixation, average duration of fixations and index of fixation activity indicate a high level of attention to the exposed deviant stimuli in subjects with pedophilic disorder, which shows their greater importance in comparison with normative stimuli. However, the individual analysis of the data should take into account not only individual physiological indicators, but also their combination, since an oculomotor activity is significantly influenced by internal and external factors. The obtained data suggest that eye tracking is a very promising diagnostic method to identify paraphilic disorders.

Sexual Chemosignals: Evidence that Men Process Olfactory Signals of Women's Sexual Arousal

Research suggests that humans can communicate emotional states (e.g., fear, sadness) via chemosignals. However, thus far little is known about whether sexual arousal can also be conveyed through chemosignals and how these signals might influence the receiver. In three experiments, and a subsequent mini meta-analysis, support was found for the hypothesis that men can process the scent of sexually aroused women and that exposure to these sexual chemosignals affect the subsequent perceptions and sexual motivation of men. Specifically, Experiment 1 revealed that men evaluate the axillary sweat of sexually aroused women as more attractive, compared to the scent of the same women when not sexually aroused. In addition, Experiment 2 showed that exposure to sexual chemosignals increased the men's sexual arousal. Experiment 3 found support for the thesis that exposure to sexual chemosignals would increase sexual motivation. As predicted, men devoted greater attention to and showed greater interest in mating with women who displayed sexual cues (e.g., scantily dressed, in seductive poses). By contrast, exposure to the sexual chemosignals did not alter males' attention and mating interest toward women who displayed no sexual cues. It is discussed how sexual chemosignals may function as an additional channel in the communication of sexual interest and how contextual factors can influence the dynamics of human sexual communication.

Mating Strategies and the Masculinity Paradox: How Relationship Context, Relationship Status, and Sociosexuality Shape Women's Preferences for Facial Masculinity and Beardedness

According to the dual mating strategy model, in short-term mating contexts women should forego paternal investment qualities in favor of mates with well-developed secondary sexual characteristics and dominant behavioral displays. We tested whether this model explains variation in women's preferences for facial masculinity and beardedness in male faces. Computer-generated composites that had been morphed to appear ± 50% masculine were rated by 671 heterosexual women (M age = 31.72 years, SD = 6.43) for attractiveness when considering them as a short-term partner, long-term partner, a co-parent, or a friend. They then completed the Revised Sociosexual Inventory (SOI-R) to determine their sexual openness on dimensions of desire, behavior, and attitudes. Results showed that women's preferences were strongest for average facial masculinity, followed by masculinized faces, with feminized faces being least attractive. In contrast to past research, facial masculinity preferences were stronger when judging for co-parenting partners than for short-term mates. Facial masculinity preferences were also positively associated with behavioral SOI, negatively with desire, and were unrelated to global or attitudinal SOI. Women gave higher ratings for full beards than clean-shaven faces. Preferences for beards were higher for co-parenting and long-term relationships than short-term relationships, although these differences were not statistically significant. Preferences for facial hair were positively associated with global and attitudinal SOI, but were unrelated to behavioral SOI and desire. Although further replication is necessary, our findings indicate that sexual openness is associated with women's preferences for men's facial hair and suggest variation in the association between sociosexuality and women's facial masculinity preferences.