Mate preference and brain oscillations: Initial romantic attraction is associated with decreases in alpha‐ and lower beta‐band power

Abstract

Initial romantic attraction (IRA) refers to a series of positive reactions (such as feelings of exhilaration and compulsive thinking) toward desirable potential partners, usually at initial or early‐stage encounters when no close relationship has yet been established. After decades of effort, the evolutionary value and key characteristics of IRA are well understood. However, the brain mechanisms associated with IRA are unclear. To address this question, we simulated a mate selection platform similar to that of Tinder. When participants assessed their romantic interest in potential partners on the platform, their electroencephalogram (EEG) signals were recorded in real time. The behavioral data demonstrated that IRA to ideal potential partners mainly reflects the dimensions of arousal and domination. The main study finding was that processing of the individual preference faces that resulted in IRA was associated with a decrease in power in the alpha and lower beta bands over the posterior and anterior sensor clusters; this occurred between 870 and 2,000 ms post‐stimulus. Key findings regarding event‐related potentials (ERPs) sensitive to individual stimuli preferences were replicated. The results support the hypothesis that brain oscillations in the alpha and lower beta range may reflect modulation in cortical activity associated with individual mate preferences.

Tactile estimation of hedonic and sensory properties during active touch: An electroencephalography study

“…Hedonic estimations of hessian elicited significantly greater ERD than silk in contralateral temporoparietal beta‐band. Decreases in beta‐band power are associated with increased subjective preference for food, face, olfactory, auditory and thermal stimuli (Bauer et al, 2015; Son & Chun, 2018; Tashiro et al, 2019; Yuan & Liu, 2022). In temporoparietal regions, beta‐band power distinguishes pleasant from unpleasant tactile stimuli during passive stimulation of the hairy skin, where the least preferred texture elicited greater ERD than more preferred textures (Singh et al, 2014).…”

Neural Processing of Facial Attractiveness and Romantic Love: An Overview and Suggestions for Future Empirical Studies

“…Recent neuroimaging studies using the speed-dating paradigm have further provided intriguing findings, including synchronization of brain activities between the two people who are interacting ( Yuan and Liu, 2022 ), the automatic formation of a “reflected impression” on the speed-dating partner (i.e., the degree to which participants expect the partner to positively view them; Ito et al, 2020 ), and similarities of functional connectivity profiles obtained from resting-state fMRI data that are predictive of the compatibility of the impressions between the two partners ( Kajimura et al, 2021 ). On the other hand, no previous studies have directly revealed how our brains integrate perceived facial attractiveness into initial romantic attraction.…”

A portable affective computing system for identifying mate preference

“…In real life, the odds of meeting someone who makes us have a romantic desire are very low, only a few percent [7,8]. Therefore, to obtain sufficient data to train the model, we must find a method to increase the induction rate of romantic attraction [7,8,26].…”

“…A 128-channel Biosemi ActiveTwo system was used to collect EEG signals. The signals were filtered online with a 0.1-100-Hz band-pass filter and sampled at 512 Hz [7,8]. After data acquisition, a series of preprocessing of the EEG data was also required, including channel location, filtering (0.1−50 Hz), elimination of artifacts (i.e., bad data and bad channels), re-referencing (average reference), interpolation of bad channel, and independent component analysis.…”