ATLANTA, GA — The journal, Hormones And Behavior recently published a study revealing that a man’s gaze will linger on a woman’s face and facial expression longer than anything else when he looks at a hardcore pornographic image.The study, through Emory University, also revealed that women will look at images of heterosexual sex longer than men.
Emory psychologist Kim Wallen and his former grad 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 gaze-tracking device to measure where his or her gaze went first, and how long it stayed there.
Men went straight to the women’s faces and lingered for a while, but most of the women were more interested in the sexual activity. How much so depended on whether the women 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 jewellery, 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 as much at first glance.
“It’s cryptic, but facial expression is one way of showing an indication of interest in and enjoyment of sex,” Wallen told the local media.
