That person across the way staring at you? Do they really like you or just the curves of your body?
A new study by the University of Chicago can shed some light on the subject. The study found that people will stare more at a person's face if they see that person as a partner they can love, but they will gaze more at a person's body if they are feeling sexual desire. These gaze patterns occurs in just half of a second, as people make that subconscious or not so subconscious judgment.
"Although little is currently known about the science of love at first sight or how people fall in love, these patterns of response provide the first clues regarding how automatic attentional processes, such as eye gaze, may differentiate feelings of love from feelings of desire toward strangers," said lead author Stephanie Cacioppo, director of the University of Chicago's High-Performance Electrical NeuroImaging Laboratory.
Cacioppo co-authored the report, titled "Love Is in the Gaze: An Eye-Tracking Study of Love and Sexual Desire," which is appearing in the journal "Psychological Science." Cacioppo co-authored the report with Mylene Bolmont and her husband John T. Cacioppo.
For the study, the researchers held two experiments. Students from the University of Geneva viewed on a computer black-and-white photos of people. In part one of the experiment, they looked at photos of heterosexual couples that were looking at each other or interacting in some way. For part two, they viewed photographs of attractive individuals of the opposite sex that were gazing directly at the camera, and thus as the viewer of the photo. None of the photos participants viewed had nudity or erotic images. In both parts of the experiment, the viewers were asked to quickly identify if the person or persons in the photos gave them a feeling of romantic love or of sexual desire.
There was no difference in the time it took viewers to identify romantic love versus sexual desire, which displays how quickly the brain can process such motions. But analysis of the eye-tracking data from the computers used in the two experiments showed a differences in eye movement patterns, depending on whether the person stated they felt sexual desire or romantic love. People fixated on the face with romantic love, but with move to look at the rest of the person's body with sexual desire.
"By identifying eye patterns that are specific to love-related stimuli, the study may contribute to the development of a biomarker that differentiates feelings of romantic love versus sexual desire," said co-author John Cacioppo. "An eye-tracking paradigm may eventually offer a new avenue of diagnosis in clinicians' daily practice or for routine clinical exams in psychiatry and/or couple therapy."
This gives new meaning to the old "love at first sight" motto.
Photo: Ahmed Sinan
