Body aesthetics and weight – not the same thing!

A study by Cazzato and colleagues provides interesting new evidence relating to the idea that beauty and weight are not the same thing, and are processed differently in the brains of men and women. Their study used a technique called rTMS (repeated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation), which uses very short bursts of magnetic pulses to temporarily disrupt brain activity. In this study, the researchers disrupted a small part of the brain known to be involved in the processing of body parts (called the Extrastriatal Body Area – or EBA for short), while showing men and women computer-generated images of male and female models, which varied in terms of how round or thin they were (from extremely round to extremely thin in 4 steps: extremely round, moderately round, moderately thin, and extremely thin). After viewing each image the participants had to rate each model in terms of aesthetics (i.e. “how much do you like the model?”) and roundness (“how round is the model?”), which has been show to relate to perceived weight. The researchers found several interesting differences between the ratings of men and women, such as men liking both male and female models less following disruption (of the EBA) on the right and left side of the brain; whereas disruption of the right EBA resulted in women selectively increasing their aesthetic ratings of male, but not female, models. Interestingly, despite brain disruption causing these changes in aesthetic judgments, the perceived weight (roundness) of the male and female models did not change (irrespective of whether men or women were doing the rating, or which side of the brain was disrupted)! As well as suggesting some interesting differences in the way that men and women process the aesthetics of human bodies, the results also suggest that judgments about aesthetics and weight can be disentangled in the brain. These findings might be useful when trying to understand and perhaps even treat body image disorders.

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Source:

Cazzato, V., Mele, S., & Urgesi, C. (2014). Gender differences in the neural underpinnings of perceiving and appreciating the beauty of the body. Behavioural Brain Research, 264, 188-196.