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Automaticity in attractive face processing: brain potentials from a dual task
Julian Rellecke1, Arda Melih Bakirtas, Werner Sommer
1Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, University of Göttingen, Berlin, Germany. rellecju@psychologie.hu-berlin.de
Neuroreport
|August 19, 2011
Summary
Cognitive resources influence facial attractiveness processing. Even when cognitive load is high, attractive faces capture attention, suggesting an innate bias for evolved stimuli.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Evolutionary Psychology
- Social Psychology
Background:
- Facial attractiveness holds evolutionary significance.
- Automatic processing of facial attractiveness is not fully understood.
- Cognitive resource availability may modulate face perception.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the automaticity of facial attractiveness processing.
- To examine how cognitive resource availability affects the perception of attractive faces.
- To explore potential evolutionary underpinnings of attractiveness bias.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a dual-task paradigm with varying stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA).
- Employed event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to measure neural responses.
- Manipulated cognitive load using a primary tone task concurrent with face stimuli.
Main Results:
- Attractive faces elicited increased posterior negativity in ERPs compared to neutral faces, starting at 260 ms.
- This enhanced neural response to attractive faces was most prominent under high cognitive load (short SOA).
- Findings suggest that resource limitation may amplify the processing of attractive faces.
Conclusions:
- Facial attractiveness processing is automatic and shows a bias towards evolutionarily relevant stimuli.
- Cognitive resource availability significantly modulates the processing of attractive faces.
- The human brain exhibits hard-wired biases for processing evolutionarily prepared stimuli like attractive faces.
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