A study carried out by the University of Chicago (USA) has confirmed that both love and lust or desire are in the eyes and that there is no difference between men and women .
The researchers carried out two experiments to test visual patterns, both in men and women, in order to analyze two different emotional and cognitive states, but which humans sometimes find difficult to distinguish: love and desire . Study participants were shown a series of black and white photographs of unfamiliar people; first, photos of young heterosexual couples, of adults interacting with each other; second, photos of attractive people of the opposite sex who looked directly at the camera or the viewer, but at no time images qualified as erotic or with nudity.
The participants had to quickly decide whether they felt desire or love towards the images, revealing that both emotions fired rapidly but with a marked difference in the movement pattern of the eyes . Thus, when feeling a stranger as a potential romantic partner, the subjects looked more in the face. If, on the contrary, it aroused their sexual interest, the subjects looked at the whole body. Both processes occurred quickly, in just half a second.
Although little is currently known about the science of love at first sight or how people fall in love, these (visual) response patterns provide some first clues about how automatic attentional processes, such as gaze, can differentiate feelings of love of the feelings of desire towards strangers ”, affirms Stephanie Cacioppo, leader of the study, to the journal Psychological Science .
