KEY POINTS:
Results of a recent US study have thrown up some unexpected results about how men and women view sexy photos.
Researchers from America's Emory University found that men were more likely to focus on a woman's face before looking at other parts of her body, and women were more interested than men in viewing photos of heterosexual sex, reported the Center for Behavioural Neuroscience's winter/spring 2007 publication.
The findings, published in the journal Hormones and Behaviour examined sex differences in attention by using eye-tracking technology to pinpoint which part of a photo the study's participants were concentrating on.
Emory psychologist Kim Wallen and his former graduate student Heather Rupp showed still photos of couples having sex to 30 women and 15 men between the ages of 23 and 28, AP reported.
While women concentrated on the subjects' genital regions, men tended to focus on the faces of the people in the photos, the study reports.
The researchers also found women who were using hormonal contraceptives were more interested in looking at genitalia in the pictures, whereas those not on the pill concentrated more on background items in the photos, such as jewellery.
"The eye-tracking data suggested that what women paid most attention to was dependent on their hormonal state," said Rupp, now at Indiana University's Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction.
Rupp and Wallen believe a small section of the brain called the amygdala, which is responsible for processing emotions, may be responsible for the differing reactions of men and women to the photographs.
Women are able to tell whether naked men are aroused or not, but female bodies do not reveal much.
Wallen told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that men's reactions to the faces in the photos could be down to the fact that facial expression was one way of indicating interest in and enjoyment of sex.
- NZ HERALD STAFF
