Neural and behavioral responses to attractiveness in adult and infant faces.

To investigate the time course of the neural processing of facial attractiveness and its influence on fairness consideration during social interactions, event-related potentials (ERP) were recorded from 21 male subjects performing a two-person Ultimatum Game (UG). During this bargaining game, the male subjects played responders who decided whether to accept offers from female proposers, whose facial images (grouped as “attractive” and “unattractive”) were presented prior to the offer presentation. The behavioral data demonstrated that the acceptance ratio increased with the fairness level of the offers and, more importantly, the subjects were more likely to accept unfair offers when presented with the attractive-face condition compared with the unattractive-face condition. The reaction times (RTs) for five offers (1:9, 2:8, 3:7, 4:6 and 5:5) in the unattractive-face condition were not significantly different. In contrast, the subjects reacted slower to the attractive proposers’ unfair offers and quicker to fair offers. The ERP analysis of the face presentation demonstrated a decreased early negativity (N2) and enhanced late positive potentials (LPPs) elicited by the attractive faces compared with the unattractive faces. In addition, the feedback-related negativity (FRN) in response to an offer presentation was not significantly different for the unfair (1:9 and 2:8) and fair (4:6 and 5:5) offers in the attractive-face condition. However, the unfair offers generated larger FRNs compared with the fair offers in the unattractive-face condition (consistent with prior studies). A similar effect was identified for P300. The present study demonstrated an undermining effect of proposer facial attractiveness on responder consideration of offer fairness during the UG.

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The undermining effect of facial attractiveness on brain responses to fairness in the Ultimatum Game: an ERP study.

Effects of attractiveness on face memory separated from distinctiveness: evidence from event-related brain potentials.

Facial attractiveness has been an interesting topic in cognitive psychology due to its key role in human communication and experience. The evaluation of attractiveness is adjusted by many factors including gender differences and cultural biases. In this paper, event-related potential (ERP) activity was recorded in an oddball paradigm from 10 Chinese men and 10 Chinese women who judged attractiveness of faces. Participants were told to detect faces with neutral expression and judge their attractiveness among a train of neutral objects that were presented more frequently than the faces. The ERP analyses showed that there was enhanced detection over early (P1, N170, P2, N300) and late (P3b) components in both genders. This suggests that a biased electrophysiological response to attractive faces compared to unattractive faces could indicate the involvement of emotion and reward pathways in judging facial attractiveness. Specifically, there were delayed P1 and P3b latencies in response to attractive faces with slower response times in men compared to women. From an evolutionary perspective, this may suggest that men attribute more value to facial appearances, especially attractive features, than women do, as evidenced by their cognitive load while processing attractive faces compared to unattractive faces.

Gender, facial attractiveness, and early and late event-related potential components.

Personality manipulations: Do they modulate facial attractiveness ratings?

In this experiment, sensitivity to female facial attractiveness was examined by comparing event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to attractive and unattractive female faces within a study-test paradigm. Fourteen heterosexual participants (age range 18-24 years, mean age 21.67 years) were required to judge 84 attractive and 84 unattractive face images as either "attractive" or "unattractive." They were then asked whether they had previously viewed each face in a recognition task in which 50% of the images were novel. Analyses indicated that attractive faces elicited more enhanced ERP amplitudes than did unattractive faces in judgment (N300 and P350-550 msec) and recognition (P160 and N250-400 msec and P400-700 msec) tasks on anterior locations. Moreover, longer reaction times and higher accuracy rate were observed in identifying attractive faces than unattractive faces. In sum, this research identified neural and behavioral bases related to cognitive preferences for judging and recognizing attractive female faces. Explanations for the results are that attractive female faces arouse more intense positive emotions in participants than do unattractive faces, and they also represent reproductive fitness and mating value from the evolutionary perspective.

Jianguo Gao

Papers

Identifying cognitive preferences for attractive female faces: an event-related potential experiment using a study-test paradigm.