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Updated: Aug 11, 2025

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments
Published on: January 23, 2017
Individual attractiveness preferences differentially modulate immediate and voluntary attention
Tom S Roth1,2,3, Iliana Samara4,5, Juan Olvido Perea-Garcia4
1Cognitive Psychology Unit, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, The Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Wassenaarseweg 52, 2333 AK, Leiden, The Netherlands. t.s.roth@fsw.leidenuniv.nl.
Abstract:
Physical attractiveness plays a crucial role in mate choice for both men and women. This is reflected in visual attention: people immediately attend towards and look longer at attractive faces, especially when they are motivated to find a partner. However, previous studies did not incorporate real-life dating decisions. Here, we aimed to combine attentional tasks with individual attractiveness ratings and a real-life mate choice context, namely a speed-dating paradigm. We investigated whether heterosexual non-committed young adults showed biases in immediate and voluntary attention towards attractive faces and preferred dating partners. In line with previous research, we found considerable individual differences in individual attractiveness preferences. Furthermore, our results showed that men had a bias towards attractive faces and preferred dating partners in the immediate attention task, while results for women were mixed. In the voluntary attention task, however, both men and women had an attentional bias towards attractive faces and preferred dating partners. Our results suggest that individual attractiveness preferences are good predictors of especially voluntary attention. We discuss these findings from an evolutionary perspective and suggest directions for future research.
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