Neural bases of human mate choice: Multiple value dimensions, sex difference, and self-assessment system

Mate choice is an example of sophisticated daily decision making supported by multiple componential processes. In mate-choice literature, different characteristics of the value dimensions, including the sex difference in the value dimensions, and the involvement of self-assessment due to the mutual nature of the choice, have been suggested. We examined whether the brain-activation pattern during virtual mate choice would be congruent with these characteristics in terms of stimulus selectivity and activated brain regions. In measuring brain activity, young men and women were shown two pictures of either faces or behaviors, and they indicated which person they would choose either as a spouse or as a friend. Activation selective to spouse choice was observed face-selectively in men's amygdala and behavior-selectively in women's motor system. During both partner-choice conditions, behavior-selective activation was observed in the temporoparietal regions. Taking the available knowledge of these regions into account, these results are congruent with the suggested characteristics of value dimensions for physical attractiveness, parenting resources, and beneficial personality traits for a long-lasting relationship, respectively. The medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices were nonselectively activated during the partner choices, suggesting the involvement of a self-assessment process. The results thus provide neuroscientific support for the multi-component mate-choice mechanism.

[1]  R. C. Oldfield.  The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. , 1971, Neuropsychologia.

[2]  Jacob M. Vigil,et al.  Asymmetries in the Friendship Preferences and Social Styles of Men and Women , 2007, Human nature.

[3]  M. Kawato,et al.  Brain mechanisms for predictive control by switching internal models: implications for higher-order cognitive functions , 2009, Psychological research.

[4]  R. Gorski,et al.  Sex differences in subregions of the medial nucleus of the amygdala and the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis of the rat , 1992, Brain Research.

[5]  Mahzarin R. Banaji,et al.  Encoding-Specific Effects of Social Cognition on the Neural Correlates of Subsequent Memory , 2004, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[6]  Michael C. Bailey,et al.  The necessities and luxuries of mate preferences: testing the tradeoffs. , 2002, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[7]  Alumit Ishai,et al.  Face Perception Is Modulated by Sexual Preference , 2006, Current Biology.

[8]  J. Binder,et al.  A Parametric Manipulation of Factors Affecting Task-induced Deactivation in Functional Neuroimaging , 2003, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[9]  J. Salamone,et al.  Beyond the reward hypothesis: alternative functions of nucleus accumbens dopamine. , 2005, Current opinion in pharmacology.

[10]  Shigeru Sato,et al.  The neural basis of agency: An fMRI study , 2010, NeuroImage.

[11]  Alana T. Wong,et al.  Remembering the past and imagining the future: Common and distinct neural substrates during event construction and elaboration , 2007, Neuropsychologia.

[12]  P. Bladin,et al.  The amygdala and sexual drive: Insights from temporal lobe epilepsy surgery , 2004, Annals of neurology.

[13]  R. Cattell.  The Scree Test For The Number Of Factors. , 1966, Multivariate behavioral research.

[14]  William A. Cunningham,et al.  Implicit and Explicit Evaluation: fMRI Correlates of Valence, Emotional Intensity, and Control in the Processing of Attitudes , 2004, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[15]  Antonio Guillamón,et al.  Sex differences in the posteromedial cortical nucleus of the amygdala in the rat , 1998, Neuroreport.

[16]  Alumit Ishai,et al.  Sex, beauty and the orbitofrontal cortex. , 2007, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[17]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  Statistical parametric maps in functional imaging: A general linear approach , 1994 .

[18]  James M. Kilner,et al.  Brain systems for assessing facial attractiveness , 2007, Neuropsychologia.

[19]  S. Hamann,et al.  Men and women differ in amygdala response to visual sexual stimuli , 2004, Nature Neuroscience.

[20]  D. Yves von Cramon,et al.  Thinking about the future versus the past in personal and non-personal contexts , 2008, Brain Research.

[21]  G. Pagnoni,et al.  Human Striatal Responses to Monetary Reward Depend On Saliency , 2004, Neuron.

[22]  Helen E. Fisher,et al.  Romantic love: An fMRI study of a neural mechanism for mate choice , 2005, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[23]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  Analysis of functional MRI time‐series , 1994, Human Brain Mapping.

[24]  C. Frith,et al.  Meeting of minds: the medial frontal cortex and social cognition , 2006, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[25]  D. Buss,et al.  Personality and mate preferences: five factors in mate selection and marital satisfaction. , 1997, Journal of personality.

[26]  C. Neil Macrae,et al.  Forming impressions of people versus inanimate objects: Social-cognitive processing in the medial prefrontal cortex , 2005, NeuroImage.

[27]  G. Miller.  SEXUAL SELECTION FOR MORAL VIRTUES , 2007, The Quarterly Review of Biology.

[28]  Ashley R. Smith,et al.  Developmental Differences in Posterior Mesofrontal Cortex Recruitment by Risky Rewards , 2007, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[29]  R. C. Oldfield.  THE ASSESSMENT AND ANALYSIS OF HANDEDNESS , 1971 .

[30]  F. Martínez-García,et al.  Sexual pheromones and the evolution of the reward system of the brain: The chemosensory function of the amygdala , 2008, Brain Research Bulletin.

[31]  Shigeru Sato,et al.  Extraction of situational meaning by integrating multiple meanings in a complex environment: A functional MRI study , 2009, Human brain mapping.

[32]  D. Perrett,et al.  Beauty in a smile: the role of medial orbitofrontal cortex in facial attractiveness , 2003, Neuropsychologia.

[33]  David J. Turk,et al.  From facial cue to dinner for two: the neural substrates of personal choice , 2004, NeuroImage.

[34]  G. Shulman,et al.  Medial prefrontal cortex and self-referential mental activity: Relation to a default mode of brain function , 2001, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[35]  D. Ariely,et al.  Beautiful Faces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and Behavioral Evidence , 2001, Neuron.

[36]  Peter M. Todd,et al.  Different cognitive processes underlie human mate choices and mate preferences , 2007, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[37]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  Assessing the significance of focal activations using their spatial extent , 1994, Human brain mapping.

[38]  S. Emlen,et al.  Cognitive processes underlying human mate choice: The relationship between self-perception and mate preference in Western society , 2003, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[39]  Sterling C. Johnson,et al.  Neural correlates of self-reflection. , 2002, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[40]  E. Murray.  The amygdala, reward and emotion , 2007, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[41]  Kevin N. Ochsner,et al.  The neural correlates of direct and reflected self-knowledge , 2005, NeuroImage.

[42]  Peter M. Todd,et al.  Self-assessments and Mating Decisions How Self-assessments Can Guide Human Mating Decisions , 2022 .

[43]  C. N. Macrae,et al.  Finding the Self? An Event-Related fMRI Study , 2002, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[44]  P. Strick,et al.  Motor areas of the medial wall: a review of their location and functional activation. , 1996, Cerebral cortex.

[45]  Fernando Zelaya,et al.  Distinct roles of prefrontal cortical subregions in the Iowa Gambling Task. , 2009, Cerebral cortex.

[46]  Robin I. M. Dunbar,et al.  Impact of market value on human mate choice decisions , 1999, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[47]  Masatoshi Itoh,et al.  Target dependency of brain mechanism involved in dispositional inference: a PET study , 2004, NeuroImage.

[48]  Shigeru Sato,et al.  Cortical mechanism of communicative speech production , 2007, NeuroImage.

[49]  D. Buss,et al.  Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures , 1989, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.