The impact of psychological stress on men's judgements of female body size

Background Previous work has suggested that the experience of psychological stress may influence physical attractiveness ideals, but most evidence in favour of this hypothesis remains archival. The objective of this study was to experimentally investigate the impact of stress on men's judgements of female body size. Methods Men were randomly assigned to either an experimental group, in which they took part in a task that heightened stress (experimental group, n = 41) or in which they did not take part in such a task (control group, n = 40). Both groups rated the attractiveness of female bodies varying in size from emaciated to obese, completed a measure of appetite sensation, and had their body mass indices (BMIs) measured. Results Between-groups analyses showed that the experimental group was matched with the control group in terms of mean age, BMI, and appetite sensation. Further analyses showed that men in the experimental group rated a significantly heavier female body size as maximally attractive than the control group. Men in the experimental group also rated heavier female bodies as more attractive and idealised a wider range of female figures than did the control group. Conclusion This study found that the experience of stress was associated with a preference among men for heavier female body sizes. These results indicate that human attractiveness judgements are sensitive to variations in local ecologies and reflect adaptive strategies for dealing with changing environmental conditions

The responses of single neurons in the temporal visual cortical areas of the macaque when more than one stimulus is present in the receptive field

Neurons in the temporal visual cortical areas of primates have large receptive fields, which can show considerable selectivity for what the stimulus is irrespective of exactly where it is in the visual field. This is called translation invariance. However, such results have been found when there is only one stimulus in the visual field. The question arises of how the visual system operates in a cluttered environment. To investigate this we measured the responses of neurons with face-selective responses in the cortex in the anterior part of the superior temporal sulcus of rhesus macaques performing a visual fixation task. We found that the response of neurons to an effective face centred 8.5° from the fovea was decreased to 71 if an ineffective face stimulus for that cell was present at the fovea. In a similar way, introduction of a parafoveal ineffective face stimulus decreased the responses of these neurons to an effective face stimulus at the fovea to 75. In addition to these interactions, it was found that an effective stimulus object at the fovea produced a larger response than when it was parafoveal, and that this weighting towards an object at the fovea was also seen when more than one object was present in the visual field. The implication of this weighting of the responses of neurons towards objects at the fovea, even in an environment with more than one object present, is that the output of the visual system provides information to subsequent systems particularly about objects at the fovea, so that learning about these objects (and less about other objects elsewhere in the visual field) is facilitated. © 1995 Springer-Verlag

The Breast Size Rating Scale: Development and psychometric evaluation

Existing measures of breast size dissatisfaction have poor ecological validity or have not been fully evaluated in terms of psychometric properties. Here, we report on the development of the Breast Size Rating Scale (BSRS), a novel measure of breast size dissatisfaction consisting of 14 computer-generated images varying in breast size alone. Study 1 (N = 107) supported the scale’s construct validity, insofar as participants were able to correctly order the images in terms of breast size. Study 2 (N = 234) provided evidence of the test-retest reliability of BSRS-derived scores after 3 months. Studies 3 (N = 730) and 4 (N = 234) provided evidence of the convergent validity of BSRS-derived breast size dissatisfaction scores, which were significantly associated with a range of measures of body image. The BSRS provides a useful tool for researchers examining women’s breast size dissatisfaction

Microstructural influence on the effects of forward and reverse mechanical deformation in HSLA X65 and X80 linepipe steels

Five API grade steels designed for linepipe applications produced using different processing routes and with varying microstructures were studied against differences in work hardening and work softening behaviour obtained from mechanical data. The rolling history and wt % additions of alloying elements will determine how the microstructures perform under reverse deformation schedules commonly seen during large diameter linepipe fabrication as steels can undergo work softening in the reverse direction of deformation, otherwise known as the Bauschinger effect. The Bauschinger effect is known to be dependent on the initial forward pre-strain, volume fraction (VF) of carbo-nitride particles and initial dislocation density. The effects of grain size and solid solution strengthening are a matter of debate in the literature and the combined effects of all five strengthening mechanisms have rarely been quantified. TEM investigations determined the dislocation densities to be between 2.2 x1014 m-2 - 5.8 x1014 m-2 in the as received condition. Observed trends presented and discussed in this body of work have given a greater insight into the influence microstructure has on the mechanical properties across a wide range of HSLA steels of similar strength grades, which are of important consideration for future development of low carbon steels designed for the petrochemical industry

Nanothermal characterization of amorphous and crystalline phases in chalcogenide thin films with scanning thermal microscopy

The thermal properties of amorphous and crystalline phases in chalcogenide phase change materials (PCM) play a key role in device performance for non-volatile random-access memory. Here, we report the nanothermal morphology of amorphous and crystalline phases in laser pulsed GeTe and Ge2Sb2Te5 thin films by scanning thermal microscopy (SThM). By SThM measurements and quantitative finite element analysis simulations of two film thicknesses, the PCM thermal conductivities and thermal boundary conductances between the PCM and SThM probe are independently estimated for the amorphous and crystalline phase of each stoichiometry

Anthropometric correlates of human anger

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Evolution and Human Behavior. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2012 Elsevier B.V.The recalibrational theory of human anger predicts positive correlations between aggressive formidability and anger levels in males, and between physical attractiveness and anger levels in females. We tested these predictions by using a three-dimensional body scanner to collect anthropometric data about male aggressive formidability (measures of upper body muscularity and leg–body ratio) and female bodily attractiveness (waist–hip ratio, body mass index, overall body shape femininity, and several other measures). Predictions were partially supported: in males, two of three anger measures correlated significantly positively with several muscularity measures; in females, self-perceived attractiveness correlated significantly positively with two anger measures. However, most of these significant results were observed only after excluding from the sample 27 participants who were older than undergraduate age, leaving a subsample of 40 males and 51 females. Evidence for relationships between anthropometric attractiveness indicators and anger measures was weak, but there was some evidence for relationships between anthropometric attractiveness indicators and self-perceived attractiveness measures. While our results support the recalibrational theory's prediction that anger usage and formidability are positively correlated in males and suggest that this formidability can be assessed via anthropometric measures alone, they also suggest that this prediction may not apply to populations older than undergraduate age. Further, our results suggest that while female anger levels relate positively to self-perceived attractiveness, they are unrelated to most anthropometric measures of bodily attractiveness

Chiral Dynamics of Low-Energy Kaon-Baryon Interactions with Explicit Resonance

The processes involving low energy $\bar{K}N$ and $Y\pi$ interactions (where $Y= \Sigma$ or $\Lambda$) are studied in the framework of heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory with the $\Lambda$(1405) resonance appearing as an independent field. The leading and next-to-leading terms in the chiral expansion are taken into account. We show that an approach which explicitly includes the $\Lambda$(1405) resonance as an elementary quantum field gives reasonable descriptions of both the threshold branching ratios and the energy dependence of total cross sections.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure