Page 107 - Demo

Individual attractiveness preferences predict attention1055indicate the location of the dot (right vs. left) using the corresponding keyboard keys. In our study, all stimuli consisted of the opposite-sex participants’ profile photos from the same group. In the case that one group consisted of fewer than 10 individuals, pictures of opposite-sex participants from the previous group were added to keep the number of trials consistent across participants. It is important to note that participants had not met their partners at that point in the experimental procedure and thus could not have known that these were replacement pictures. Each trial started with a centrally presented fixation cross for a jittered duration between 1020 and 1260 in increments of 60 ms. Next, participants viewed the pictures of two opposite-sex participants for 300 ms, one of which was then replaced by a dot until the participant indicated the correct location using the corresponding keyboard keys (z for left, m for right). Every trial ended with an inter-trial interval between 1380 and 1620 ms in increments of 60 ms. After completing 10 practice trials, participants viewed all possible combinations of the opposite-sex participants’ photos (i.e., 45 dyads) twice, so each participant in a dyad would be presented as the probe (i.e., the picture replaced by the dot) and the distractor picture (i.e., the picture not replaced by the dot) leading to a total of 100 trials. Location of the probe and distractor pictures was pseudo-randomized across the trials. The task lasted approximately 8 min.In the preferential looking task, in each trial, participants viewed two of the opposite-sex participants’ pictures while their eye movements were recorded using an X2-60 Tobii eye-tracker (Tobii Pro, 2014) at a sampling rate of 60 Hz. Participants placed their chin on a chin rest at approximately 50 cm from the monitor. Each trial started with a centrally presented fixation cross for 720 ms, followed by the two pictures presented on the display for 3000 ms. Similar to the dot-probe task, in the case that one group consisted of fewer than 10 individuals, pictures of opposite-sex participants from the previous group were added to keep the number of trials consistent across participants. Every trial ended with a jittered ITI between 1380-1620 ms in increments of 60 ms. After performing 3 practice trials, participants completed 45 trials. The task lasted approximately 6 min.In addition to the tasks described above, participants rated the attractiveness of all of the stimuli on a 7-point scale. The stimuli were presented sequentially for 3 s on a computer monitor, after which the participants could indicate how attractive they found the person in the stimulus. The order of the tasks was randomized between participants.Tom Roth.indd 105 08-01-2024 10:41