| Title: | Sex-specific effects of human chemosignal on perception of angry but not fearful faces |
| Author(s): | Ye Y; Nan Y; Wei R; Wu Y; |
| Address: | "Institute of Psychology, School of Public Affairs, Xiamen University, No. 422, Siming South Road, Xiamen, Fujian, China. Department of Applied Social Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 11 Yuk Choi Rd, Hung Hom, Kowloon, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China; School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, 3663 N. Zhongshan Road, Shanghai, China. Liang Hua Middle School, Huidong County, Huizhou, Guangdong, China. Department of Applied Social Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 11 Yuk Choi Rd, Hung Hom, Kowloon, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China; Research Institute for Sports Science and Technology, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 11 Yuk Choi Rd, Hung Hom, Kowloon, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China. Electronic address: y.wu@polyu.edu.hk" |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2023.106055 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1873-3360 (Electronic) 0306-4530 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Androsta-4,16,-dien-3-one (androstadienone), a steroids implicated as a human social chemosignal, has been reported to impact one's emotional perception along the valence axis. The current study takes a step further to examine whether it modulates the perception of angry and fearful faces, two negative emotions that are similar with respect to valence and arousal, but signal different social values. Systematic comparisons of psychophysical data collected from 40 heterosexual men and 45 heterosexual women revealed that androstadienone subconsciously biased heterosexual men toward perceiving the male faces as less angry, while it biased the heterosexual women toward perceiving the female faces as angrier. Meanwhile, androstadienone did not affect the perception of fearful faces in either men or women. These findings indicate that the modulation of androstadienone on negative emotional perceptions is not uniform, suggesting that it alters the perception of specific rather than general negative emotions. In particular, it impacts one's perception of anger, which signals impending aggression, and hence could further impact an individual's social interaction in a sex-specific manner" |
| Keywords: | "Humans Male Female *Pheromones, Human *Anger Emotions Aggression Perception Facial Expression Androstadienone Angry Emotional perception Fearful Sex-specific;" |
| Notes: | "MedlineYe, Yuting Nan, Yu Wei, Ran Wu, Yin eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 2023/02/24 Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2023 May; 151:106055. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2023.106055. Epub 2023 Feb 13" |
