Many previous studies have investigated the effects of manipulating sexually dimorphic shape characteristics in face images on attractiveness judgments. However, results have been mixed and show considerable cross-cultural variability, particularly for women’s judgments of men’s facial attractiveness. Because very little research has investigated face preferences in Arab samples, we assessed Arab women’s preferences for sexually dimorphic face shapes (study 1) and the effect of sexually dimorphic face shapes on Arab women’s dominance perceptions (study 2). Analyses showed that Arab women preferred feminized versions of both women’s and men’s faces over masculinized versions (study 1, N = 272) and that masculinizing face shape had a positive effect on Arab women’s perceptions of the dominance of men, but not women (study 2, N = 270). These image manipulations did not have a significant effect on perceptions of trustworthiness, however (study 3, N = 434). Collectively, these results suggest that Arab women prefer relatively feminine face shapes in potential mates that they perceive as being low dominance. We discuss some directions for future research on the ultimate function of Arab women’s preferences for sexual dimorphism in faces

Evidence that affective factors (e.g. anxiety, depression, affect) are significantly related to individual differences in emotion recognition is mixed. Palermo et al . (Palermo et al . 2018 J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 44 , 503–517) reported that individuals who scored lower in anxiety performed significantly better on two measures of facial-expression recognition (emotion-matching and emotion-labelling tasks), but not a third measure (the multimodal emotion recognition test). By contrast, facial-expression recognition was not significantly correlated with measures of depression, positive or negative affect, empathy, or autistic-like traits. Because the range of affective factors considered in this study and its use of multiple expression-recognition tasks mean that it is a relatively comprehensive investigation of the role of affective factors in facial expression recognition, we carried out a direct replication. In common with Palermo et al . (Palermo et al . 2018 J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 44 , 503–517), scores on the DASS anxiety subscale negatively predicted performance on the emotion recognition tasks across multiple analyses, although these correlations were only consistently significant for performance on the emotion-labelling task. However, and by contrast with Palermo et al . (Palermo et al . 2018 J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 44 , 503–517), other affective factors (e.g. those related to empathy) often also significantly predicted emotion-recognition performance. Collectively, these results support the proposal that affective factors predict individual differences in emotion recognition, but that these correlations are not necessarily specific to measures of general anxiety, such as the DASS anxiety subscale.

Objectives Because more attractive women may be better able to attract and/or retain masculine mates, many researchers have proposed that women who consider themselves to be more physically attractive will show stronger preferences for men displaying masculine facial characteristics. Empirical evidence for this putative association between women’s self-rated attractiveness and preference for facial masculinity has come almost entirely from studies of Western women. Thus, we investigated whether this pattern of results also occurs in a sample of non-Western women. Methods We investigated the relationship between self-rated attractiveness and facial-masculinity preferences in a sample of Arab women (N = 281). Facial-masculinity preferences were assessed from attractiveness judgments of masculinized versus feminized versions of face images. Results By contrast with previous findings for Western women’s self-rated attractiveness, we observed no compelling evidence that Arab women who considered themselves to be more attractive showed stronger preferences for masculine men. Conclusions Our results suggest that previously reported associations between self-rated attractiveness and masculinity preferences might be somewhat culture specific, potentially reflecting cultural differences in typical mating strategies.

Dietary fibre is believed to have many health benefits (1) but confirming its associations with reduction in risk of chronic diseases is difficult as different fibres have a variety of possible actions including the production of short chain fatty acids (SCFA) during colonic fermentation. There are also several fermentable substrates that have not been included in dietary fibre estimates for epidemiological studies. Thus developing methods to estimate fermentable carbohydrates in the diet would aid better characterisation of the impact of fermentation on health. Using evidence in the literature we developed several possible equations to estimate the amount of potential fermented carbohydrate in the diet and tested these against SCFA measured in the urine of 122 healthy subjects on their normal diet.Equations to estimate fermentable carbohydrate (FC) were based on content of dietary fibre (DF) and non-starch polysaccharide (NSP), a proportion of total starch (TS) and non-digestible oligosaccharide content. These were then applied to 3 day weighed dietary records using data from food tables and other published sources. These values were correlated with the SCFA concentrations in 24 hour urine collections measured by GC-MS.The relationships were examined for 78 subjects after excluding those who were shown to be under-reporting dietary intake using a physical activity level cut-off of 1·2. The Spearman correlation coefficient (r) and significance (p) values for the correlations with urinary acetate are shown in Table 1 for dietary fibre (AOAC 991·43 method) and NSP and for two corresponding equations, one including no insoluble fibre and the other 50% insoluble fibre (Figure 1). There was no significant relationship with the other SCFA.Weak but significant correlations were found for the equations estimating FC. FC-DF2 and FC-NSP2 had better correlations than DF and NSP alone. The inclusion of 50% insoluble fibre did not greatly improve the correlations. However, urinary SCFA are not well validated for colonic SCFA production estimation, with other factors such as liver metabolism affecting SCFA levels. These equations need to be tested against other measures of colonic fermentation such as in vitro fermentations. ¥ FC-DF1 = soluble DF + oligosaccharide + 10% TS; Ж FC-NSP1 = soluble NSP + oligosaccharide + 10% TS § FC-DF2 = soluble DF + 50% insoluble DF + oligosaccharide + 10% TS; FC-NSP2 = soluble NSP + 50% insoluble NSP + oligosaccharide + 10% TS; (Spearman's correlation) Fig. 1. Correlation of FC-DF2 (A) and FC-NSP2 (B) and 24 h urinary excretion of acetate