Facial masculinity is related to perceived age, but not perceived health

Variation in women's preferences for male facial masculinity may reflect variation in attraction to immunocompetence or to maturity. This paper reports two studies on (a) the interrelationships between women's preferences for masculinity, apparent health, and age in male faces and (b) the extent to which manipulating each of these characteristics affects women's attributions of the remaining characteristics. Both studies were carried out with a large sample of the general public (Studies 1a and 2a) and independently in a laboratory environment with smaller undergraduate samples (Studies 1b and 2b). In both samples, masculinity and age preferences were positively related, and masculinity preferences were not associated with preferences for apparent health. There was also a positive relationship between perceived age and perceived masculinity in both samples, but evidence for a link between perceptions of masculinity and health was equivocal. Collectively, these findings suggest that variation in women's preferences for masculine proportions in male faces reflect variation in attraction to male age and do not support a strict immunocompetence explanation of preferences for facial masculinity

The role of sexual and romantic attraction in human mate preferences

Sex differences in mate preferences are ubiquitous, having been evidenced across generations and cultures. Their prevalence and persistence have compellingly placed them in the evolutionarily adaptive context of sexual selection. However, the psycho-biological mechanisms contributing to their generation and main- tenance remain poorly understood. As such a mechanism, sexual attraction is assumed to guide interest, desire, and the affinity toward specific partner features. However, whether sexual attraction can indeed explain sex differences in partner preferences has not been explicitly tested. To better understand how sex and sexual attraction shape mate preferences in humans we assessed how partner preferences differed across the spectrum of sexual attraction in a sample of 479 individuals that identified as asexual, gray-sexual, demisexual or allosexual. We further tested whether romantic attraction predicted preference profiles better than sexual attraction. Our results show that sexual attraction accounts for highly replicable sex differences in mate preferences for high social status and financial prospects, conscientiousness, and intelligence; however, it does not account for the enhanced preference for physical attractiveness expressed by men, which persists even in individuals with low sexual attraction. Instead, sex differences in physical attractiveness preference are better explained by the degree of romantic attraction. Furthermore, effects of sexual attraction on sex differences in partner preferences were grounded in current rather than previous experiences of sexual attraction. Taken together, the results support the idea that contemporary sex differences in partner preferences are maintained by several psycho-biological mechanisms that evolved in conjunction, including not only sexual but also romantic attraction

GABA-mediated changes in inter-hemispheric beta frequency activity in early-stage Parkinson's disease

In Parkinson's disease (PD), elevated beta (15-35Hz) power in subcortical motor networks is widely believed to promote aspects of PD symptomatology, moreover, a reduction in beta power and coherence accompanies symptomatic improvement following effective treatment with l-DOPA. Previous studies have reported symptomatic improvements that correlate with changes in cortical network activity following GABAA receptor modulation. In this study we have used whole-head magnetoencephalography to characterize neuronal network activity, at rest and during visually cued finger abductions, in unilaterally symptomatic PD and age-matched control participants. Recordings were then repeated following administration of sub-sedative doses of the hypnotic drug zolpidem (0.05mg/kg), which binds to the benzodiazepine site of the GABAA receptor. A beamforming based 'virtual electrode' approach was used to reconstruct oscillatory power in the primary motor cortex (M1), contralateral and ipsilateral to symptom presentation in PD patients or dominant hand in control participants. In PD patients, contralateral M1 showed significantly greater beta power than ipsilateral M1. Following zolpidem administration contralateral beta power was significantly reduced while ipsilateral beta power was significantly increased resulting in a hemispheric power ratio that approached parity. Furthermore, there was highly significant correlation between hemispheric beta power ratio and Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS). The changes in contralateral and ipsilateral beta power were reflected in pre-movement beta desynchronization and the late post-movement beta rebound. However, the absolute level of movement-related beta desynchronization was not altered. These results show that low-dose zolpidem not only reduces contralateral beta but also increases ipsilateral beta, while rebalancing the dynamic range of M1 network oscillations between the two hemispheres. These changes appear to underlie the symptomatic improvements afforded by low-dose zolpidem

The Historical Perspective of the Problem of Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility

The starting-point of the article is the inconsistency between the established practice of acceptance in many cases, of economic policy (i.e. progressive taxation, national insurance policies) and the theoretical rejection of interpersonal comparisons of utility who see it as an unscientific value judgement. The inconsistency is explained by identifying three groups of theorists: (1) those who thought of comparability as a value judgement and unacceptable for economic policy considerations (positivists), (2) those who agreed with the positivists, on the normative nature of comparability but accepted it as a basis for economic policy, and (3) those who thought of it as part of a scientific economics. The implication was that, despite the dominance of positivist methodology in other sub-fields, the historical experience points to the difficulty of applying positivist methodology to the issue of comparability. If the inconsistency is thus due to the inappropriateness of the positivist approach, the only possible solution is the explicit abandonment of this approach at least in matters related to the collective aspects of economics