Women's fertility cues affect cooperative behavior: Evidence for the role of the human putative chemosignal estratetraenol

Oren, Chen Z.; Shamay‐Tsoory, Simone G.

doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2018.10.028

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 60 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Jacob and McClintock, 2000; Saxton et al, 2008). A previous work using similar stimuli to those used in the current study (2M EST and control), found no perceptual differences between EST and control solutions in terms of their intensity, pleasantness and familiarity (Oren and Shamay-Tsoory, 2019).…”

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 57%

A scent of romance: human putative pheromone affects men’s sexual cognition

Oren

Peled-Avron

Shamay‐Tsoory

2019

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Previous studies suggest that the putative human pheromone estratetraenol affects several systems underlying human functioning and appears to activate neural systems that are known to affect sexual behavior. In this study, we investigated whether exposure to estratetraenol affects men’s social cognition abilities. In the first experiment, men performed the Interpersonal Perception task while being exposed to estratetraenol and to a control solution. Men performed the task with better accuracy while being exposed to estratetraenol. This improvement was evident especially in the Intimacy category where participants evaluated romantic relationships. In a second experiment, we exposed a different sample of men to estratetraenol and to a control solution while performing a task that implicitly measured their emotional reaction to photos depicting two humans either romantically touching or not, with a control condition of two inanimate objects either touching or not. We found that the participants’ emotional reaction to touch was stronger under exposure to estratetraenol. Together, these results suggest that exposure to estratetraenol may trigger a change in men’s social cognition, especially in sexually related situations.

show abstract

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 57%

A scent of romance: human putative pheromone affects men’s sexual cognition

Oren

Peled-Avron

Shamay‐Tsoory

2019

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Using a larger sample of odour donors, and therefore accentuating differences between high-and low-quality odours, could potentially make the effect of odour quality measurable. In addition, measuring participants' subjective evaluations of intensity and pleasantness of the odour stimuli would enable a manipulation check and further exploration of differences in odour condition (e.g., Oren and Shamay-Tsoory, 2019). Alternatively, lack of effects could be due to methodological choices, including the time that odour samples were left in the cubicle before each session (15 minutes), and the time that cubicles were left open before testing another participant (>15 minutes), that may have been insufficient to avoid the residual presence of previously used stimuli, potentially creating some level of smell mixture and confounding any effects of different odour stimuli.…”

Section: Odour Effects On Voice Modulation and Attractiveness Ratingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contextualising courtship: Exploring male body odour effects on vocal modulation

Leongoméz

Sánchez

Vásquez-Amézquita

et al. 2021

Behavioural Processes

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Voice characteristics are important to communicate socially relevant information. Recent research has shown that individuals alter their voices depending on the context of social interactions and perceived characteristics of the audience, and this affects how they are perceived.Numerous studies have also shown that the presence of bodily odours can elicit psychological changes in people. Here, we tested whether the presence of male axillary odour would influence vocal modulations in courtship contexts. We analysed differences in vocal parameters and attractiveness ratings across 950 recordings from 80 participants as they responded to oppositesex target stimuli. Using these, we tested whether men's and women's vocal parameters and perceived attractiveness differed in the presence or absence of the odour. We expected women to speak with increased voice F0, and men to lower their pitch, when exposed to male body odour, especially if it were of high quality. However, neither the presence of male odour, its quality, nor the addition of androstadienone produced any consistent changes in vocal parameters.Nevertheless, rated stimulus attractiveness was predicted by F0 and especially F0 variability, suggesting that this is a key parameter in signalling attraction during human courtship, and supporting the idea that vocal modulations are context-sensitive.

show abstract

“…This type of chemical signal provides information about gender and reproductive status, mediates social and sexual behaviors, and alters neuroendocrine processes (Spehr et al, 2006). The most commonly used putative pheromone substances are estratetraenol (Estr) (Vermetten and Bremner, 2003;Hare et al, 2017;Oren and Shamay-Tsoory, 2019;Ye et al, 2019) and 5α-androst-16-en-3α-ol (Andr) (Morofushi, 2000;Shinohara, 2000;Jahanfar et al, 2007). Pheromone perception in humans is much debated, and researchers have yet to report positive results to detect a conscious perception of pheromones in humans, especially for physical attraction (Black and Biron, 1982).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perception of Social Odor and Gender-Related Differences Investigated Through the Use of Transfer Entropy and Embodied Medium

Invitto

Keshmiri

Mazzatenta

et al. 2021

Front. Syst. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The perception of putative pheromones or social odors (PPSO) in humans is a widely debated topic because the published results seem ambiguous. Our research aimed to evaluate how cross-modal processing of PPSO and gender voice can affect the behavioral and psychophysiological states of the subject during a listening task with a bodily contact medium, and how these effects could be gender related. Before the experimental session, three embodied media, were exposed to volatilized estratetraenol (Estr), 5α-androst-16-en-3 α-ol (Andr), and Vaseline oil. The experimental session consisted in listening to a story that were transmitted, with a male or female voice, by the communicative medium via a Bluetooth system during a listening task, recorded through 64-active channel electroencephalography (EEG). The sense of co-presence and social presence, elicited by the medium, showed how the established relationship with the medium was gender dependent and modulated by the PPSO. In particular, Andr induced greater responses related to co-presence. The gender of the participants was related to the co-presence desire, where women imagined higher medium co-presence than men. EEG findings seemed to be more responsive to the PPSO–gender voice interaction, than behavioral results. The mismatch between female PPSO and male voice elicited the greatest cortical flow of information. In the case of the Andr–male voice condition, the trained model appeared to assign more relevance to the flow of information to the right frontotemporal regions (involved in odor recognition memory and social behavior). The Estr–male voice condition showed activation of the bilateral frontoparietal network, which is linked to cognitive control, cognitive flexibility, and auditory consciousness. The model appears to distinguish the dissonance condition linked to Andr matched with a female voice: it highlights a flow of information to the right occipital lobe and to the frontal pole. The PPSO could influence the co-presence judgements and EEG response. The results seem suggest that could be an implicit pattern linked to PPSO-related gender differences and gender voice.

show abstract

Women's fertility cues affect cooperative behavior: Evidence for the role of the human putative chemosignal estratetraenol

Cited by 11 publications

References 60 publications

A scent of romance: human putative pheromone affects men’s sexual cognition

A scent of romance: human putative pheromone affects men’s sexual cognition

Contextualising courtship: Exploring male body odour effects on vocal modulation

Perception of Social Odor and Gender-Related Differences Investigated Through the Use of Transfer Entropy and Embodied Medium

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About