Gender differences in the neural underpinning of perceiving and appreciating the beauty of the body

Abstract

Abstract:Although previous studies have suggested a certain degree of right hemisphere dominance for the response of extrastriate body area (EBA) during body perception, recent evidence suggests that this functional lateralization may differ between men and women. It is unknown, however, whether and how gender differences in body perception affect appreciating the beauty of the body conspecifics. Here, we applied five 10-Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) pulses over left and right EBA and over the vertex to investigate the contribution of visual body representations in the two hemispheres on esthetic body perception. Female and male healthy volunteers were requested to judge how much they liked opposite-and same-gender virtual model bodies or to judge their weight, thus allowing us to compare the effects of right-and left-EBA rTMS on esthetic (liking) and perceptual (weight) judgments of human bodies. The analysis of the esthetic judgments provided by women revealed that right-EBA rTMS increased the liking judgments of opposite-vs. same-gender models, as compared to both vertex and left EBA stimulation.Conversely, in men the liking judgments of opposite-gender models decreased after virtual disruption of both right and left EBA as compared to vertex stimulation. Crucially, no significant effect was found for the perceptual task, showing that left-and right-EBA rTMS did not affect weight perception. Our results provide evidence of gender difference in the hemispheric asymmetry of EBA in the esthetic processing of human bodies, with women showing stronger right hemisphere dominance in comparison with men.

Different contributions of visual and motor brain areas during liking judgments of same- and different-gender bodies

“…However, the relative contribution of the two areas should vary according to the model's gender. Based on previous findings (Cazzato et al, 2014), we expected that EBA-rTMS should modulate the aesthetic preference of different-, but not same-gender bodies. No specific hypothesis regarding the direction of the effects of dPMC could be made on the basis of previous studies, although the embodiment perspective on body aesthetic perception (Cross & Ticini, 2012;Ticini et al, 2015) would claim that the involvement of dPMC should be greater for those bodies that are more similar to the observer (i.e., same-gender models).…”

“…No study, however, has so far tested whether motor body representation may play different roles for the aesthetic appreciation of same-and different-gender bodies. While both Calvo-Merino et al (2010)'s andCazzato et al (2014)'s studies supported a necessary role of EBA in aesthetic body appreciation, to our best knowledge, no study has so far provided causative evidence for the role of motor areas with these regards, thus weakening the importance of sensorimotor embodiment in perceiving and appreciating the beauty of same-and different-gender bodies. In fact, Calvo-Merino et al (2010) reported that interfering with neural activity in the ventral PMC heightened, rather than blunting aesthetic sensitivity.…”

“…Research on how the neural underpinnings of body aesthetic appreciation are shaped by the correspondence between the observer and model's gender, however, is scant. In a recent study (Cazzato et al, 2014), we used rTMS to test the role of EBA in the judgments of the aesthetic value ("liking") of male and female body stimuli varying in size and in implied motion. Results showed that, in both 6 male and female observers, EBA-rTMS affected the liking judgments of only different-gender models, suggesting that neural activity of EBA is necessary for processing those aesthetic properties that are used to appreciate the body of individuals of the other gender.…”

“…In different groups of participants, these areas were stimulated on the left or right hemisphere. Following previous studies (Calvo-Merino et al, 2008;Cross et al, 2011;Cazzato et al, 2014), we focused on the aesthetic dimension of like-dislike ratings rather than on the objective dimension of beautiful vs. non-beautiful ratings (Augustin et al, 2012;Jacobsen et al, 2004;Knoop et al, 2016). Furthermore, to rule out the possibility that rTMS may induce a simple bias either towards preferring (or not preferring) the first image of a pair of stimuli by using a forced-choice aesthetic preference task (Calvo-Merino et al, 2010), we asked participants for explicit aesthetic ratings of how much they liked each stimulus.…”

“…Furthermore, to rule out the possibility that rTMS may induce a simple bias either towards preferring (or not preferring) the first image of a pair of stimuli by using a forced-choice aesthetic preference task (Calvo-Merino et al, 2010), we asked participants for explicit aesthetic ratings of how much they liked each stimulus. In addition, while previous aesthetic studies have focused on only one dimension of body aesthetic preference, presenting for examples pictures of the same model while performing different dance moves (Calvo-Merino et al, 2010), in keeping with the Cazzato et al (2014)'s study, here we included stimuli with systematic variations of body size and body motion, which have a specific, common aesthetic value for a group of individuals, with a preference for thinner and more dynamic stimuli (Cazzato et al, 2012;Mele et al, 2013). Furthermore, rather than asking participants to separately rate the aesthetic value of the model's body or of the body posture (Cazzato et al, 2012), here, we allowed participants to rely on both body form and body action cues in their aesthetic ratings of all stimuli.…”