Women gaze behaviour in assessing female bodies: the effects of clothing, body size, own body composition and body satisfaction

Often with minimally clothed figures depicting extreme body sizes, previous studies have shown women tend to gaze at evolutionary determinants of attractiveness when viewing female bodies, possibly for self-evaluation purposes, and their gaze distribution is modulated by own body dissatisfaction level. To explore to what extent women’s body-viewing gaze behaviour is affected by clothing type, dress size, subjective measurements of regional body satisfaction and objective measurements of own body composition (e.g., chest size, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio), in this self-paced body attractiveness and body size judgement experiment, we compared healthy, young women’s gaze distributions when viewing female bodies in tight and loose clothing of different dress sizes. In contrast to tight clothing, loose clothing biased gaze away from the waist-hip to the leg region, and subsequently led to enhanced body attractiveness ratings and body size underestimation for larger female bodies, indicating the important role of clothing in mediating women’s body perception. When viewing preferred female bodies, women’s higher satisfaction of a specific body region was associated with an increased gaze towards neighbouring body areas, implying satisfaction might reduce the need for comparison of confident body parts; furthermore undesirable body composition measurements were correlated with a gaze avoidance process if the construct was less changeable (i.e. chest size) but a gaze comparison process if the region was more changeable (i.e. body mass index, dress size). Clearly, own body satisfaction and body composition measurements had an evident impact on women’s body-viewing gaze allocation, possibly through different cognitive processes

Does it look safe? An eye tracking study into the visual aspects of fear of crime

Studies of fear of crime often focus on demographic and social factors, but these can be difficult to change. Studies of visual aspects have suggested that features reflecting incivilities, such as litter, graffiti, and vandalism increase fear of crime, but methods often rely on participants actively mentioning such aspects, and more subtle, less conscious aspects may be overlooked. To address these concerns, the present study examined people’s eye movements while they judged scenes for safety. Forty current and former university students were asked to rate images of day-time and night-time scenes of Lincoln, UK (where they studied) and Egham, UK (unfamiliar location) for safety, maintenance and familiarity, while their eye movements were recorded. Another twenty-five observers not from Lincoln or Egham rated the same images in an internet survey. Ratings showed a strong association between safety and maintenance and lower safety ratings for night-time scenes for both groups, in agreement with earlier findings. Eye movements of the Lincoln participants showed increased dwell times on buildings, houses, and vehicles during safety judgments, and increased dwell times on streets, pavements, and markers of incivilities for maintenance. Results confirm that maintenance plays an important role in perceptions of safety, but eye movements suggest that observers also look for indicators of current or recent presence of people

Is there a non-monotonic relation between photospheric brightness and magnetic field strength?

Context. The relationship between the brightness and field strength of small-scale solar magnetic features is an important factor for solar irradiance variations and a constraint for simulations of solar magneto-convection. Aims. We wish to clarify the origin of the apparent discrepancy between observational results and radiative MHD simulations. Methods. Maps of (bolometric) brightness and magnetic field strength from the simulation of a plage region were convolved and rebinned to mimic observations obtained with telescopes with finite aperture. Results. Image smearing changes the monotonic relation between brightness and field strength obtained at the original resolution of the simulation into a profile with a maximum at intermediate field strength, which is in qualitative agreement with the observations. This result is mainly due to the smearing of strong magnetic fields at the bright edges of magnetic structures into the weakly magnetized adjacent areas. Conclusions. Observational and simulation results are qualitatively consistent with each other if the finite spatial resolution of the observations is taken into account

On the relation between continuum brightness and magnetic field in solar active regions

Context. Variations of solar irradiance are mainly determined by the changing coverage of the visible solar disk with magnetic flux concentrations. The relationship between brightness and field strength is an important ingredient for models and reconstructions of irradiance variations. Aims. We assess the effect of limited observational resolution on the relationship between brightness and magnetic field by comparing comprehensive MHD simulations with observational results. Methods. Simulations of magnetoconvection representing the near-surface layers of a plage region were used to determine maps of the continuum brightness and Stokes profiles for the Fe