The Principal Investigator

It goes without saying that men and women don’t always see eye-to-eye, but researchers now have evidence that there’s a difference in the ways that male and female brains judge beauty.

The authors of the study, published Monday (2.23.09) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), theorize that this gender difference developed after the evolutionary split between humans and chimpanzees, roughly 4 million years ago.

The team of scientists from Spain used a technique called magnetoencephalography (MGE) to measure brain activity while men and women evaluated the beauty of 400 photographs of paintings from various artistic periods (abstract, classic, impressionist, postimpressionist), landscapes, urban areas and artifacts. The researchers deliberately excluded photographs with close up views of humans or well-known paintings so as to not distort the analysis.

During the test, the participants were asked to indicate a judgment of ‘beautiful’ or ‘not-beautiful’ for each image with a finger point. Later, the same participants ranked the beauty of the images they saw during the test.

The researchers focused their attention on the parietal lobe, a region of the brain well recognized for its role in pulling together and processing sensory information, such as sights, smells and sounds.

For the first 300 milliseconds the test, neither the brains of women or men differed in response to a beautiful versus non-beautiful image. However, after 300 milliseconds, the brain’s response to beauty became clear, with male brains displaying higher activity in the right parietal lobe in response to beautiful images. Like men, the women’s brains showed heightened activity when observing a beautiful image, but this activity appeared in both left and right sides of the brain.

Previous studies of the parietal lobe suggest the right parietal lobe is involved in the processing of coordinate spatial relationships (the distance among objects) while the left lobe assists with the processing of categorical spatial relationships (whether one object is above or below another). The authors suggest that the bilateral parietal lobe activity in women suggests they draw upon categorical information to assess beauty while men use coordinate information.

The researchers speculate that the evolution of the gender differences in response to beauty may have been born out of the exploration techniques of males and females in hunter-gatherer groups. “Tracking animals and foraging for plant food involve different spatial scenarios, and hence, require different kinds of spatial skills,” they write.

After a few days of bad press a few weeks back, Lucy, the 3.2 million-year-old ancestor of humans, is back in the news again.

Researchers at the University of Texas-Austin today (2.06.09) announced they have digitized the oldest, most complete fossil record of an upright walking human ancestor by using high-resolution CT scan of her remains.

The discovery of Lucy in Ethiopia in the early-1970s overturned previous theories that the brains of ancestors evolved prior to bipedalism (the ability to walk upright). Though Lucy’s skull was small, her bone structure indicated she walked upright.

2007 marked the first year that the remains of Lucy traveled outside her native Ethiopia. Beginning her US tour in Houston, Lucy made a 10-day pit stop in Austin where the researchers used CT scanning to image all 80 pieces of her remains before moving on to Seattle, where she is on exhibit until March.

The images of Lucy’s bones will now allow scientists to peer back in time and compare Lucy’s bone structure to those of modern humans and apes.

“Because Lucy is so complete, she is one of the few fossils that permit us to compare how she used her arms versus how she used her legs,” UT-Austin anthropologist John Kappleman said in a press release. “These new data will allow us to examine the theory that she climbed about in the trees, as well as walked on two legs when she was on the ground.”

Additionally, the scans offer a digital record of Lucy’s remains.

“These scans will ensure that future generations are familiar with Lucy,” said Jara Mariam, director general of Ethiopia’s Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, in a press release. Eventually, “a virtual Lucy will be able to visit every classroom on the planet” through a Web site. Researchers will be able to

A website with a basic version will allow students to look at Lucy and compare her skeleton with those of modern humans and apes, and researchers will be able to access the images on high-resolution files.

Lucy made headlines several weeks ago after the President and CEO of the Pacific Science Center in Seattle reported poor attendance at the Lucy exhibit was costing the center close to $500,000. The center responded with lay-offs of 8 percent of its staff and wage freezes, according to The Seattle Times. Lucy’s poor-received debut in the states has science museums second-guessing if they want to commit to the exhibit.

Famous fossil Lucy scanned at the University of Texas at Austin (press release)

Related links:

Lucy’s bones secretly scanned at UT (Austin American-Statesman, 2.6.09)

Lucy 2.0: Famous fossil hominid goes digital (Wired.com, 2.6.09)

Few lining up to see famous fossil at Pacific Science Center (The Seattle Times, 1.24.09)