Effects of the menstrual cycle on looking preferen

Authors: Agnès Lacreuse Julie MartinMalivel Henry S Lange James G Herndon

Publish Date: 2006/08/15

Volume: 10, Issue: 2, Pages: 105-115

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Abstract

Fluctuations of ovarian hormones across the menstrual cycle influence a variety of social and cognitive behaviors in primates For example female rhesus monkeys exhibit heightened interest for males and increased agonistic interactions with other females during periods of high estrogen levels In the present study we hypothesized that females’ preference for males during periods of high estrogen levels is also expressed at the level of face perception We tested four intact females on two facetasks involving neutral portraits of male and female rhesus monkeys chimpanzees and humans In the visual preference task VP monkeys had to touch a button to view a face image The image remained on the screen as long as the button was touched and the duration of pressing was taken as an index of the monkeys looking time for the face stimulus In the FaceDelayed Recognition Span Test FaceDRST monkeys were rewarded for touching the new face in an increasing number of serially presented faces Monkeys were tested 5 days a week across one menstrual cycle Blood was collected every other day for analysis of estradiol and progesterone Two of the four females were cycling at the time of testing We did not find an influence of the cycle on FaceDRST likely due to a floor effect In the VP however the two cycling individuals looked longer at conspecific male faces than female faces during the periovulatory period of the cycle Such effects were absent for human and chimpanzee faces and for the two noncycling subjects These data suggest that ovarian hormones may influence females’ preferences for specific faces with heightened preference for male faces during the periovulatory period of the cycle Heightened interest for stimuli of significant reproductive relevance during periods of high conception risk may help guide social and sexual behavior in the rhesus monkeyThis research was supported in part by a grant from the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience to JMM and AL under the STC program of the National Science Foundation IBN9876754 and by NIH grants RR00165 to the Yerkes Center and MH 61817 to JH We thank Marisa Hall Paola Espinosa Mark Goh and Vikash Parekh for their help with data collection and Susie Lackey for the hormonal assays We thank three anonymous reviewers for their input which greatly improved the manuscript The experiments comply with the current laws of the US regarding the use of animals in research

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