Is Dating Behavior in Digital Contexts Driven by Evolutionary Programs? A Selective Review

In recent years, millions of citizens all over the world have used digital dating services. It remains unknown to what extent human sexuality will be changed by this. Based on an evolutionary psychological perspective, we assume that sexual selection shaped behavioural tendencies in men and women that are designed to increase the reproductive fitness. These tendencies are referred to as sexual strategies. Males and females sexual strategies differ according to sex-dimorphic reproductive investments. We assume that this inheritance will affect human sexuality also in a digital future. To evaluate this assumption, we conducted a selective review of studies on digital dating services. Based on sexual selection theory, we derived a number of hypotheses regarding how men and women will use digital dating services typically and how the use of digital dating services might affect sexual wellbeing. Out of an initial data set of 2,568 records, we finally reviewed a set of 13 studies. These studies provided support for the notion that men and women act in the digital dating area according to sex-typical strategies. However, sometimes the circumstances of digital dating affect communication flow, e.g., in that men are even more active in establishing contacts than they are in real world conditions. Overall, women appear to accomplish their sexual goals in digital dating arenas more than men do given a surplus of male demand. Our results suggest that future human sexuality will be impacted by an interaction of both: sex-dimorphic ancient sexual strategies and new technologies

An Overwhelming Desire to Be Blind: Similarities and Differences between Body Integrity Identity Disorder and the Wish for Blindness

Background: The urge to be permanently blind is an extremely rare mental health disturbance. The underlying cause of this desire has not been determined yet, and it is uncertain whether the wish for blindness is a condition that can be included in the context of body integrity identity disorder, a condition where people feel an overwhelming need to be disabled, in many cases by amputation of a limb or through paralysis. Objective: The aim of this study is to test the hypothesis that people with a desire for blindness suffer from a greater degree of visual stress in daily activities than people in a healthy visual control group. Method: We created a Likert scale questionnaire to measure visual stress, covering a wide range of everyday situations. The wish for blindness is extremely rare and worldwide only 5 people with an urge to be blind were found to participate in the study (4 female, 1 male). In addition, a control group of 35 (28 female, 7 male) visually healthy people was investigated. Questions addressing issues that may be experienced by participants with a desire to be blind were integrated into the questionnaire. Results: The hypothesis that people with a desire for blindness suffer from a significantly higher visual overload in activities of daily living than visually healthy subjects was confirmed; the significance of visual stress between these groups was p < 0.01. In addition, an interview with the 5 affected participants supported the causal role of visual overload. Conclusions: The desire for blindness seems to originate from visual overload caused by either ophthalmologic or organic brain disturbances. In addition, psychological reasons such as certain personal character traits may play an active role in developing, maintaining, and reinforcing one’s desire to be blind

Distinct cortical networks for the detection and identification of human body

In the human brain information about bodies and faces is processed in specialized cortical regions named EBA and FBA (extrastriate and fusiform body area) and OFA and FFA (occipital and fusiform face area), respectively. Here we investigate with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) the cortical areas responsible for the identification of individual bodies and the distinction between 'self' and 'others'. To this end we presented subjects with images of unfamiliar and familiar bodies and their own body. We identified separate coactivation networks for body-detection (processing body related information), body-identification (processing of information relating to individual bodies) and self-identification (distinction of self from others). Body detection involves the EBA in both hemispheres, and in the right hemisphere: the FBA and areas in the IPL (inferior parietal lobe). Body identification involves areas in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) of both hemispheres and in the right hemisphere areas in the medial frontal gyrus (MFG), in the cingulate gyrus (CG), in the central (CS) and the post-central sulcus (PCS), in the inferior parietal lobe (IPL) and the FBA. When the recognition of one's own body is contrasted to the identification of familiar bodies, differential activation is observed in areas of the inferior parietal lobe (IPL) and inferior parietal sulcus (IPS) of the right hemisphere, and in the posterior orbital gyrus (pOrbG) and in the lateral occipital gyrus (LOG) of the left hemisphere. Thus, identification of individual bodies and self-other distinction involve in addition to the classical occipito-parietal network a parieto-frontal network. Interestingly, the EBA shows no differential activation for distinctions between familiar or unfamiliar bodies or recognition of one's own body

Interpersonelle Attraktion aus sozialpsychologischer Perspektive

Eyssel FA. Interpersonelle Attraktion aus sozialpsychologischer Perspektive. In: Stirn A, Stark R, Tabbert K, Wehrum-Osinsky S, Oddo S, eds. Sexualität, Körper und Neurobiologie. Grundlagen und Störungsbilder im interdisziplinären Fokus. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer; 2013: 79-86

Brain activity elicited by viewing pictures of the own virtually amputated body predicts xenomelia

BACKGROUND: Xenomelia is a rare condition characterized by the persistent desire for the amputation of physically healthy limbs. Prior studies highlighted the importance of superior and inferior parietal lobuli (SPL/IPL) and other sensorimotor regions as key brain structures associated with xenomelia. We expected activity differences in these areas in response to pictures showing the desired body state, i.e. that of an amputee in xenomelia. METHODS: Functional magnetic resonance images were acquired in 12 xenomelia individuals and 11 controls while they viewed pictures of their own real and virtually amputated body. Pictures were rated on several dimensions. Multivariate statistics using machine learning was performed on imaging data. RESULTS: Brain activity when viewing pictures of one's own virtually amputated body predicted group membership accurately with a balanced accuracy of 82.58% (p = 0.002), sensitivity of 83.33% (p = 0.018), specificity of 81.82% (p = 0.015) and an area under the ROC curve of 0.77. Among the highest predictive brain regions were bilateral SPL, IPL, and caudate nucleus, other limb representing areas, but also occipital regions. Pleasantness and attractiveness ratings were higher for amputated bodies in xenomelia. CONCLUSIONS: Findings show that neuronal processing in response to pictures of one's own desired body state is different in xenomelia compared with controls and might represent a neuronal substrate of the xenomelia complaints that become behaviourally relevant, at least when rating the pleasantness and attractiveness of one's own body. Our findings converge with structural peculiarities reported in xenomelia and partially overlap in task and results with that of anorexia and transgender research

Neuronal Correlates of Colour-Graphemic Synaesthesia: Afmri Study

Synaesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which specific events in one sensory modality induce experiences in another. In colour-graphemic synaesthesia, subjects report colour experiences induced by written letters. Our subjects displayed this type of synaesthesia, as verified by a test of the consistency of the perceptual associations over time, and had no history of neurological or psychiatric disorders. We investigated the hypothesis that the synaesthetic colour experience is accompanied by an activation of the human colour area (V4/V8) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). With retinotopic and colour mapping we could confirm that colour stimuli specifically activate area V4/V8. For the study of colour-graphemic synaesthesia we used an AB boxcar design with blocks of letters that elicited a synaesthetic colour experience (condition A) alternating with blocks of letters that did not (condition B). In both hemispheres condition A led to a significantly higher activation of V4/V8 than condition B. These findings support the hypothesis that the grapheme-induced colour perception in synaesthesia is caused by an activation of the colour areas of the human visual cortex

MS3666-295-303_Sperling_defLT

ABSTRACT Synaesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which specific events in one sensory modality induce experiences in another. In colour-graphemic synaesthesia, subjects report colour experiences induced by written letters. Our subjects displayed this type of synaesthesia, as verified by a test of the consistency of the perceptual associations over time, and had no history of neurological or psychiatric disorders. We investigated the hypothesis that the synaesthetic colour experience is accompanied by an activation of the human colour area (V4/V8) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). With retinotopic and colour mapping we could confirm that colour stimuli specifically activate area V4/V8. For the study of colour-graphemic synaesthesia we used an AB boxcar design with blocks of letters that elicited a synaesthetic colour experience (condition A) alternating with blocks of letters that did not (condition B). In both hemispheres condition A led to a significantly higher activation of V4/V8 than condition B. These findings support the hypothesis that the grapheme-induced colour perception in synaesthesia is caused by an activation of the colour areas of the human visual cortex

Sexual Responses Are Facilitated by High-Order Contextual Cues in Females but Not in Males

Sexual responses are thought to be controlled by a brain module called the sexual module. Sexual strategies of males and females vary to a great extent, and sexual responses of males and females may be affected by their sexual strategies. However, the current view of the sexual module is that of a unisex module. This might be questionable since brain modules are defined as evolved cognitive mechanisms to solve adaptive problems which are different for males and females. We hypothesize that the sexual module responds differently in the presence of complex (high-order) contextual cues that are related to gender-dimorphic sexual strategies in males and females. We conducted a priming experiment in which stimuli related to sexual strategies were disentangled from their sexual meaning. Nonsexual priming pictures related to either economic resources or social interactions preceded a sexual-target picture in order to test whether the primes were able to modulate the subjective sexual response to the sexual target. In a control condition, priming pictures without relation to mating preferences but with similar emotional impact were presented. In males, sexual responses were similar in the experimental and control conditions. In females, however, primes related to economic resources or social interactions modulated sexual arousal significantly more than the control primes. Our findings suggest that brain modules dedicated to process the experimental primes were functionally connected with the sexual module in females more than in males, making females’ sexual responses more prone to the impact of high-order cultural cues than males’ sexual responses. A gender-dimorphic connectivity of the sexual module may be the way in which gender-dimorphic sexual strategies are implemented in the human mind