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Bernhard Fink

Publications and source records attributed to Bernhard Fink.

17 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Amygdala activation at 3T in response to human and avatar facial expressions of emotions.

Facial expressions of emotions are important in nonverbal communication. Although numerous neural structures have been identified to be involved in emotional face processing, the amygdala is thought to be a core moderator. While previous studies have relied on facial images of humans, the present study is concerned with the effect of computer-generated (avatar) emotional faces on amygdala activation. Moreover, elicited activation patterns in response to viewing avatar faces are compared with the neuronal responses to human facial expressions of emotions. Twelve healthy subjects (five females) performed facial emotion recognition tasks with optimized 3T event-related fMRI. Robust amygdala activation was apparent in response to both human and avatar emotional faces, but the response was significantly stronger to human faces in face-sensitive structures, i.e. fusiform gyri. We suggest that avatars could be a useful tool in neuroimaging studies of facial expression processing because they elicit amygdala activation similarly to human faces, yet have the advantage of being highly manipulable and fully controllable. However, the finding of differences between human and avatar faces in face-sensitive regions indicates the presence of mechanisms by which human brains can differentiate between them. This mechanism merits further investigation.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2006

Second to fourth digit ratio and numerical competence in children.

The ratio between the 2nd and 4th fingers (2D:4D)-a potential proxy for prenatal testosterone (T) exposure-shows a sex difference, with males usually having lower mean values; the latter potentially indicates higher prenatal T exposure. We studied relations between 2D:4D and competencies in the domains of counting, number knowledge, and visual-number representation in 73 children aged 6-11 years. Significant negative correlations between numerical performance in all of these areas and right and left hand 2D:4D ratios were found for boys but not girls. To the extent that 2D:4D ratios reflects prenatal exposure to T, the implications are (i) high prenatal T may be associated with better performance on some basic numerical measures for boys, and (ii) prenatal exposure to T may affect boys and girls differently with respect to some numerical competencies.

Achievement↗
PubMed2005

Second to fourth digit ratio and face shape.

The average human male face differs from the average female face in size and shape of the jaws, cheek-bones, lips, eyes and nose. It is possible that this dimorphism is determined by sex steroids such as testosterone (T) and oestrogen (E), and several studies on the perception of such characteristics have been based on this assumption, but those studies focussed mainly on the relationship of male faces with circulating hormone levels; the corresponding biology of the female face remains mainly speculative. This paper is concerned with the relative importance of prenatal T and E levels (assessed via the 2D : 4D finger length ratio, a proxy for the ratio of T/E) and sex in the determination of facial form as characterized by 64 landmark points on facial photographs of 106 Austrians of college age. We found that (i) prenatal sex steroid ratios (in terms of 2D : 4D) and actual chromosomal sex dimorphism operate differently on faces, (ii) 2D : 4D affects male and female face shape by similar patterns, but (iii) is three times more intense in men than in women. There was no evidence that these effects were confounded by allometry or facial asymmetry. Our results suggest that studies on the perception of facial characteristics need to consider differential effects of prenatal hormone exposure and actual chromosomal gender in order to understand how characteristics have come to be rated 'masculine' or 'feminine' and the consequences of these perceptions in terms of mate preferences.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Human pheromones and sexual attraction.

Olfactory communication is very common amongst animals, and since the discovery of an accessory olfactory system in humans, possible human olfactory communication has gained considerable scientific interest. The importance of the human sense of smell has by far been underestimated in the past. Humans and other primates have been regarded as primarily 'optical animals' with highly developed powers of vision but a relatively undeveloped sense of smell. In recent years this assumption has undergone major revision. Several studies indicate that humans indeed seem to use olfactory communication and are even able to produce and perceive certain pheromones; recent studies have found that pheromones may play an important role in the behavioural and reproduction biology of humans. In this article we review the present evidence of the effect of human pheromones and discuss the role of olfactory cues in human sexual behaviour.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Photocopies yield lower digit ratios (2D:4D) than direct finger measurements.

The ratio between 2nd and 4th digit length (2D:4D) may be a negative correlate of prenatal testosterone. This possibility has led to a number of studies of 2D:4D and its relationship with sexual orientation and other sex-dependent traits. At first, 2D:4D ratio was calculated from measurements made directly on the fingers but recently a number of studies have used measurements from photocopies of the hands. Here, we compared finger lengths (2D, 3D, 4D, and 5D) and ratios obtained from these two measurement techniques. Our sample consisted of 30 homosexual men and 50 men and 70 women who were not selected for their sexual orientation. We found evidence that (1)2D:4D from photocopies tended to be lower than that from direct measurements, (2) there were differences in finger lengths such that 2D from photocopies tended to be shorter or equal in length to direct measurements, while 4D from photocopies tended to be longer or equal in length to direct measurements, (3) the sex differences in 2D:4D tended to be stronger for photocopy measurements, and (4) the pattern for length differences across 2D to 5D appeared to be different for homosexual men compared to men and women recruited without regard to sexual orientation. We conclude that there are differences in digit ratios obtained from photocopies and direct measurements, and these differences arise from length differences recorded from the different protocols. Therefore, 2D:4D ratios obtained from photocopies and direct measurements should not be combined within one study nor should they be used together in comparative studies. We suggest that finger length differences between the two techniques could result from the shapes of fat-pads at the tips of the fingers and these may be dependent on sex and sexual orientation.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Physical attractiveness and health: comment on Weeden and Sabini (2005).

Evolutionary behavioral biology suggests that certain characteristics of the human face and body are important for mate preferences and are therefore subject to sexual selection. J. Weeden and J. Sabini identify a number of weaknesses in the association between traits' attractiveness and health. In contrast, the authors argue that (a) studies on preferences for physical characteristics that rely on 1 trait permit only limited interpretation, (b) limitations placed on J. Weeden and J. Sabini's review exclude important associations, (c) there are misconceptions in their treatment of some traits, and (d) their selected literature provides an inaccurate picture regarding effect size. The authors suggest that future research in this field should seek conceptual and methodological constancy in trait selection and in the evaluation of attractiveness- and health-related traits.

Beauty↗
PubMed2005

Visualizing facial shape regression upon 2nd to 4th digit ratio and testosterone.

Sex steroids are supposed to moderate the differences between male and female facial characteristics. Studies on women's preferences for male faces reported increased preferences for facial architecture developed under the influence of testosterone as this may indicate masculinity, dominance and social status. Recent research demonstrates that facial sexual dimorphism does not only develop at puberty but may be organized much earlier in ontogeny. However, the actual cause and timing of variation in facial shape due to sex-steroids remains speculative. This study uses data from Neave and colleagues who measured digit ratio (2D:4D) as a proxy to prenatal testosterone and also salivary testosterone samples in order to study differential effects of androgens on perceived male facial shape. Male facial shape was regressed upon 2D:4D ratio and circulating levels of testosterone by means of geometric morphometric methods. We found some evidence for opposite effects of early androgen action (via 2D:4D ratio) on the upper and the lower face respectively (i.e. low 2D:4D ratio results in a relatively robust and prominent lower face), whereas circulating testosterone seems to cause a rather uniform elongation of the face. Local deformations primarily show pronounced and medially tailed eyebrows for the shapes associated with increasing salivary testosterone. These preliminary results suggest that prenatal and pubertal testosterone have differential effects on male facial shape that should be considered in future studies on women's preferences towards male facial appearance.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Second to fourth digit ratio and hand skill in Austrian children.

Prenatal exposure to testosterone is thought to promote the development of the right-hemisphere and increase the incidence of sinistrality. A direct test of this hypothesis has previously been problematic because of the difficulty of indirectly assessing prenatal sex steroid exposure. Evidence now suggests that the ratio between the length of the second and fourth digits (2D:4D) is related to prenatal testosterone exposure. We tested whether digit ratio is related to the degree of hand skill such that low 2D:4D (indicating high levels of testosterone in utero) may be correlated with enhanced left-hand performance. In right-handed children, high 2D:4D correlated with improved right-hand skill and low 2D:4D correlated with enhanced left-hand skill. Correlations were found to be similar for girls and for boys. Since low 2D:4D has been previously reported to be associated with faster left-hand speed compared to right in Afro-Caribbean children with very low mean 2D:4D, the present finding in a Caucasian population with high mean 2D:4D suggests that a tendency of improved left-hand performance due to prenatal testosterone may be found across ethnic groups.

Austria↗
PubMed2004

The representation of self reported affect in body posture and body posture simulation.

It is taken for granted that the non-verbal information we acquire from a person's body posture and position affects our perception of others. However, to date human postures have never been described on an empirical level. This study is the first approach to tackle the unexplored topic of human postures. We combined two approaches: traditional behavior observation and modern anthropometric analysis. Photographs of 100 participants were taken, their body postures were transferred to a three dimensional virtual environment and the occurring body angles were measured. The participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire about their current affective state. A principal component analysis with the items of the affect questionnaire (Positive Negative Affect Scales, PANAS) revealed five main factors: aversion, openness, irritation, happiness, and self-confidence. The body angles were then regressed on these factors and the respective postures were reconstructed within a virtual environment. 50 different subjects rated the reconstructed postures from the positive and negative end of the regression. We found the ratings to be valid and accurate in respect to the five factors.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Second to fourth digit ratio, testosterone and perceived male dominance.

Previous studies have shown that male faces with extreme features associated with testosterone are perceived as dominant and masculine. Women have been reported to prefer more masculinized male faces as they may consider testosterone markers to be an 'honest' indication of good health, and such considerations may underlie their aesthetic preferences. However, pronounced testosterone facial markers are also associated with dominance, and several negative personality traits. This suggests that female aesthetic preferences may be an adaptive compromise between positive attributes associated with higher than average testosterone, and negative attributes associated with more extreme masculinization. This current study attempts to clarify the role of hormone markers in female perceptions of dominance, masculinity and attractiveness, in male facial images. Recent evidence suggests that the relative length of the 2nd to 4th finger (2D : 4D ratio) is a pointer to prenatal testosterone levels and may thus serve as a window to the prenatal hormonal environment. We measured 2D : 4D in a sample of male college students and took salivary samples to analyse circulating levels of testosterone. Women rated facial images of these males for dominance, masculinity and attractiveness. Our results show that male 2D : 4D was significantly negatively related to perceived dominance and masculinity but not attractiveness. Circulating testosterone levels were not related to dominance, masculinity or attractiveness. These findings suggest that: (i) high prenatal levels of testosterone serve to 'organize' male facial features to subsequently reflect dominance and masculine characteristics presumably activated during puberty; and (ii) attractiveness is not directly related to testosterone levels. We conclude that facial dominance and masculinity reflect a male's perceived status rather than his physical attraction to women.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Darwinian aesthetics: sexual selection and the biology of beauty.

Current theoretical and empirical findings suggest that mate preferences are mainly cued on visual, vocal and chemical cues that reveal health including developmental health. Beautiful and irresistible features have evolved numerous times in plants and animals due to sexual selection, and such preferences and beauty standards provide evidence for the claim that human beauty and obsession with bodily beauty are mirrored in analogous traits and tendencies throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. Human beauty standards reflect our evolutionary distant and recent past and emphasize the role of health assessment in mate choice as reflected by analyses of the attractiveness of visual characters of the face and the body, but also of vocal and olfactory signals. Although beauty standards may vary between cultures and between times, we show in this review that the underlying selection pressures, which shaped the standards, are the same. Moreover we show that it is not the content of the standards that show evidence of convergence--it is the rules or how we construct beauty ideals that have universalities across cultures. These findings have implications for medical, social and biological sciences.

Animals↗
PubMed2002

Effects of putative male pheromones on female ratings of male attractiveness: influence of oral contraceptives and the menstrual cycle.

Previous research has revealed that natural and synthetic pheromones can enhance ratings of opposite sex attractiveness. The present study investigated the effects of exposure to male axillary secretions on female ratings of the sexual attractiveness of male stimuli. Thirty-two female undergraduates, half of whom were contraceptive pill users, rated male vignette characters and photographs of male faces on aspects of attractiveness. On two separate study days, corresponding to different phases of their menstrual cycle, stimuli were presented while exposed to male axillary pheromones and under a control condition (no pheromone). The order of testing was balanced with respect to pheromone/control condition and menstrual cycle phase. Pheromone exposure resulted in significantly higher attractiveness ratings of vignette characters and faces. Use of the contraceptive pill or menstrual cycle phase had equivocal effects on some vignette items and neither had any influence on female ratings of male facial attractiveness. The results of this study suggest that exposure to natural male axillary pheromones can significantly enhance female perceptions of various aspects of male attractiveness.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Dynamic systems and inferential information processing in human communication.

Research in human communication on an ethological basis is almost obsolete. The reasons for this are manifold and lie partially in methodological problems connected to the observation and description of behavior, as well as the nature of human behavior itself. In this chapter, we present a new, non-intrusive, technical approach to the analysis of human non-verbal behavior, which could help to solve the problem of categorization that plagues the traditional approaches. We utilize evolutionary theory to propose a new theory-driven methodological approach to the 'multi-unit multi-channel modulation' problem of human nonverbal communication. Within this concept, communication is seen as context-dependent (the meaning of a signal is adapted to the situation), as a multi-channel and a multi-unit process (a string of many events interrelated in 'communicative' space and time), and as related to the function it serves. Such an approach can be utilized to successfully bridge the gap between evolutionary psychological research, which focuses on social cognition adaptations, and human ethology, which describes every day behavior in an objective, systematic way.

Biological Evolution↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Digit ratio and hand-grip strength in German and Mizos men: cross-cultural evidence for an organizing effect of prenatal testosterone on strength.

The ratio of the length of the second and fourth digits (2D:4D), a putative proxy of prenatal testosterone (PT), is correlated with measures of physical fitness. The relationship between the organizing effect of PT on physical fitness is likely to arise as a response to intrasexual male competition for females. Physical strength is also likely to be important in intrasexual conflict, but nothing is known concerning the relationship between 2D:4D and strength. The strength of an individual is strongly influenced by body size, and 2D:4D is strongly dependent on ethnicity. We present evidence that strength, as measured from hand-grip strength, is related to 2D:4D in samples from two ethnic groups (52 Caucasian men from Germany, and 88 Oriental Mizos men from northeast India) which differed markedly in size. We found that 1) the German men were heavier and stronger, but had higher 2D:4D (lower PT) than the Mizos men; 2) a median split for grip strength into low (LGS) and high (HGS) groups showed that for right-hand 2D:4D (but not left-hand 2D:4D), the LGS men had higher 2D:4D than the HGS men; and 3) the relationships between right 2D:4D and grip strength were independent of ethnicity, age, height, and weight. Measures of grip strength correlate strongly with strength in other muscle groups, so we conclude that PT may have an early organizing effect on strength in men, and this is likely to be widespread in human groups.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Male facial appearance signals physical strength to women.

Previous studies showed that male faces with extreme features that are likely to be associated with testosterone (T) are perceived as dominant and masculine. Women were reported to prefer masculinized male faces, as they may consider T markers to be an "honest" indication of good health. However, it is also likely that female preferences for certain male faces arise from the fact that dominant- and masculine-looking males are signaling characteristics which may be beneficial in intrasexual conflict, and thereby also indicate potential achievers of high status, an important factor in female mate selection. Although numerous studies were built on this assumption, nothing is known about the relationship between perceived facial dominance and physical strength in men. We measured hand-grip strength, as a measure of overall physical strength, in a sample of 32 male students, and recorded age, body weight, and height. Seventy-nine women rated facial images of these men for dominance, masculinity, and attractiveness. After controlling for age and body weight, hand-grip strength was found to correlate significantly positively with all three measures. The present data thus support the supposition that a male's physical strength is also signaled via facial characteristics of dominance and masculinity, which are considered attractive by women.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The second to fourth digit ratio and asymmetry.

BACKGROUND: Deviations of physical characteristics from bilateral symmetry, in otherwise symmetric individuals, are supposed to result from environmental perturbations during development. One cause of such perturbations may be sex steroids such as testosterone and oestrogen. AIM: The study examined the relationship between second to fourth digit ratio (2D:4D), a putative negative correlate with prenatal testosterone and a positive correlate with prenatal oestrogen, and asymmetry. METHODS: Eleven traits (including the second and fourth finger lengths) were measured in a sample of 680 English children aged 2-18 years, and second to fifth finger lengths in samples of 120 Austrian and English undergraduate students aged from 17 to 30 years and 213 Polish adults aged from 26 to 90 years. RESULTS: Significant U-shaped curvilinear associations between 2D:4D and all 11 traits were found in English children with the strongest associations between 2D:4D and composite asymmetry of second plus fourth digit, and second to fifth digits. Further investigation of the relation between 2D:4D and digit asymmetries in the sample of Austrian and English undergraduates and the Polish adults confirmed significant U-shaped relationships between 2D:4D and finger asymmetries. CONCLUSION: Our data show that both low 2D:4D (a marker of high prenatal testosterone) and high 2D:4D (a marker of high prenatal oestrogen) are associated with elevated levels of asymmetry and this relationship applies particularly to finger asymmetry.

Adolescent↗