Page 85 - Demo

Attractiveness modulates attention834Experiment 2MethodParticipantsExperiment 2 included 150 new participants. Participants had normal or correctedto-normal vision and could participate regardless of their sexual orientation. However, given the small number of nonheterosexual participants (N = 10), they were excluded from further analyses. Therefore, the data set for Experiment 2 included 140 participants (68 females, mean age = 38.66 years, SD = 11.64, ranging from 17 to 67 years old). Participants were visitors at the Apenheul Primate Park (Apeldoorn, the Netherlands). The experimental procedures were in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the study was reviewed and approved by the Psychology Ethics Committee of Leiden University (CEP19-0612/343). Participants were not compensated for their participation.Experimental DesignThe experiment held a randomized within-subjects design, where the fixed factor comprised the location of the probe (behind symmetrical or asymmetrical face) and the combination (symmetrized vs. original, asymmetrized vs. original, symmetrized vs. asymmetrized). The dependent variable was RT (in ms).ApparatusThe task was performed on a touchscreen (Iiyama ProLite T1930SR-1, 1,280 × 1,024 pixels), which was connected to a Dell desktop computer (model OPTIPLEX 3020) and ran via E-prime (Version 2.0; Psychology Software Tools). The touchscreen was located in a public but quiet corner of the park. To minimize potential distractors, we set up the touchscreen on a table adjacent to a wall. Participants sat at a distance of approximately 60 cm from the touchscreen.StimuliWe selected faces from the Young Adult White Faces Dataset (DeBruine & Jones, 2017). This stimulus set contains manipulated and original portraits of 20 young men and 20 young women with a neutral facial expression. We used the 50% symmetric, 50% asymmetric, and the original portraits of each individual. This allowed us to test whether subtle differences in facial characteristics of the same individual modulated attention.Tom Roth.indd 83 08-01-2024 10:41