Visual attractiveness is leaky: the asymmetrical relationship between face and hair

Predicting personality is crucial when communicating with people. It has been revealed that the perceived attractiveness or beauty of the face is a cue. As shown in the well-known “what is beautiful is good” stereotype, perceived attractiveness is often associated with desirable personality. Although such research on attractiveness used mainly the face isolated from other body parts, the face is not always seen in isolation in the real world. Rather, it is surrounded by one’s hairstyle, and is perceived as a part of total presence. In human vision, perceptual organization/integration occurs mostly in a bottom up, task-irrelevant fashion. This raises an intriguing possibility that task-irrelevant stimulus that is perceptually integrated with a target may influence our affective evaluation. In such a case, there should be a mutual influence between attractiveness perception of the face and surrounding hair, since they are assumed to share strong and unique perceptual organization. In the current study, we examined the influence of a task-irrelevant stimulus on our attractiveness evaluation, using face and hair as stimuli. The results revealed asymmetrical influences in the evaluation of one while ignoring the other. When hair was task-irrelevant, it still affected attractiveness of the face, but only if the hair itself had never been evaluated by the same evaluator. On the other hand, the face affected the hair regardless of whether the face itself was evaluated before. This has intriguing implications on the asymmetry between face and hair, and perceptual integration between them in general. Together with data from a post hoc questionnaire, it is suggested that both implicit non-selective and explicit selective processes contribute to attractiveness evaluation. The findings provide an understanding of attractiveness perception in real-life situations, as well as a new paradigm to reveal unknown implicit aspects of information integration for emotional judgment

Judgments of Facial Attractiveness as A Dynamic Combination of Internal/External Parts

Although the importance of facial attractiveness has been widely researched, how attractiveness of internal/external facial parts and whole interacts in a time course of attractiveness judgment is still unclear. In our research, visual information integration in the facial attractiveness judgment has been investigated in a series of psychological experiments in which presentation of facial images to be evaluated their attractiveness was constrained spatially and/or temporally. Attractiveness evaluation of briefly-presented facial images demonstrated that 1) contribution of the eyes to the whole facial attractiveness judgment remains high even after short exposure duration as 20 milliseconds to the face, while contribution of other facial parts changed over time, and 2) either the gaze of the face is directed to or averted from the evaluator affected the dynamic integration of facial parts information to the judgments of whole facial attractiveness. Different experiments examining the influence of external feature on the perceived facial attractiveness revealed the mutual, but not symmetrical influence between facial attractiveness and hair attractiveness. These findings together suggest the dynamic feature of facial attractiveness judgment where information from internal/external features is integrated over the time while it is affected by social cue such as gaze direction of the face

Judgments of Facial Attractiveness as A Dynamic Combination of Internal/External Parts

Although the importance of facial attractiveness has been widely researched, how attractiveness of internal/external facial parts and whole interacts in a time course of attractiveness judgment is still unclear. In our research, visual information integration in the facial attractiveness judgment has been investigated in a series of psychological experiments in which presentation of facial images to be evaluated their attractiveness was constrained spatially and/or temporally. Attractiveness evaluation of briefly-presented facial images demonstrated that 1) contribution of the eyes to the whole facial attractiveness judgment remains high even after short exposure duration as 20 milliseconds to the face, while contribution of other facial parts changed over time, and 2) either the gaze of the face is directed to or averted from the evaluator affected the dynamic integration of facial parts information to the judgments of whole facial attractiveness. Different experiments examining the influence of external feature on the perceived facial attractiveness revealed the mutual, but not symmetrical influence between facial attractiveness and hair attractiveness. These findings together suggest the dynamic feature of facial attractiveness judgment where information from internal/external features is integrated over the time while it is affected by social cue such as gaze direction of the face

顔の魅力知覚に関する実験心理学的研究

学位の種別: 課程博士審査委員会委員 : （主査）東京大学教授 中邑 賢龍, 東京大学教授 廣瀬 通孝, 東京大学教授 植田 一博, 東京大学准教授 熊谷 晋一郎, 早稲田大学教授 渡邊 克巳University of Tokyo(東京大学

A New Strategy Using Rikkunshito to Treat Anorexia and Gastrointestinal Dysfunction

Because the clinical condition of gastrointestinal dysfunction, including functional dyspepsia, involves tangled combinations of pathologies, there are some cases of insufficient curative efficacy. Thus, traditional herbal medicines (Kampo medicines) uniquely developed in Japan are thought to contribute to medical treatment for upper gastrointestinal symptoms. Rikkunshito is a Kampo medicine often used to treat dyspeptic symptoms. Over the past few years, several studies have investigated the efficacy of rikkunshito for dysmotility, for example, upper abdominal complaints, in animals and humans. Rikkunshito ameliorated the decrease in gastric motility and anorexia in cisplatin-treated rats, stress-loaded mice, and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor-treated rats by enhancing plasma ghrelin levels via serotonin2B/2C receptor antagonism. In addition, rikkunshito ameliorated the decrease in food intake in aged mice and stress-loaded decreased gastric motility via enhanced ghrelin receptor signaling. Several clinical studies revealed that rikkunshito was effective in ameliorating upper gastrointestinal symptoms, including dyspepsia, epigastric pain, and postprandial fullness. In this review, we discuss these studies and propose additional evidence-based research that may promote the clinical use of Kampo medicines, particularly rikkunshito, for treating anorexia and gastrointestinal dysfunction

Influence of Aging and Gender Differences on Feeding Behavior and Ghrelin-Related Factors during Social Isolation in Mice

<div><p>Psychological stress due to social isolation is known to cause abnormal feeding behaviors, but the influences of gender and aging on subchronic stress-induced changes in feeding behaviors are unknown. Thus, we examined the changes in body weight, food intake, and orexigenic ghrelin-related factors during 2 weeks of isolation stress in young and aged mice. Food intake increased significantly in young mice in the isolation group compared with the group-housed control throughout the experimental period. This isolation-induced increase in food intake was not observed in aged mice. In young mice, there were no significant differences in body weight between the isolated group and group-housed control up to 2 weeks. However, aged male mice exhibited significant weight loss at 2 weeks and a similar tendency was observed in aged female mice. Young male mice, but not female mice, had significantly increased (2.2-fold) plasma acylated ghrelin levels after 1 week of isolation compared with the group-housed control. A significant but lower increase (1.3-fold) was also observed in aged male mice. Hypothalamic preproghrelin gene expression decreased significantly with isolation in young male mice, whereas it increased significantly in female mice. The expression levels of NPY and AGRP in the hypothalamus, which are transmitted by elevated peripheral ghrelin signals, increased significantly in isolated young male mice, whereas the AGRP expression levels decreased significantly in young female mice. Isolation caused no significant differences in the expression levels of these genes in aged mice. In isolation, young female mice exhibited markedly increased dark- and light-phase locomotor activities compared with male mice, whereas male and female aged mice exhibited no obvious increases in activity immediately after the dark phase started. We conclude that the gender-specific homeostatic regulatory mechanisms required to maintain body weight operated during subchronic psychological stress in young mice but not in aged mice.</p></div

Changes in the plasma acylated ghrelin levels and hypothalamic gene expression levels.

<p>After 1 week of isolation, the mice were fasted for 18 h. The plasma acylated ghrelin levels and hypothalamic gene expression levels in young male mice (A), young female mice (B), aged male mice (C), and aged female mice (D) are shown. The data represent the mean ± SEM (Young group: n = 7–8, Young isolation: n = 8, Aged group: n = 4–5, Aged isolation: n = 7–8). *, **, ***, <i>p</i> < 0.05, 0.01, 0.001 respectively vs. group-housed mice.</p

Experimental protocol employed in this study.

<p>Experimental protocol employed in this study.</p

Possible mechanisms for age- and gender-specific changes in feeding and locomotion after subchronic isolation.

<p>Possible mechanisms for age- and gender-specific changes in feeding and locomotion after subchronic isolation.</p