Can the robot "see" what I see? Robot gaze drives attention depending on mental state attribution.

Mentalizing, where humans infer the mental states of others, facilitates understanding and interaction in social situations. Humans also tend to adopt mentalizing strategies when interacting with robotic agents. There is an ongoing debate about how inferred mental states affect gaze following, a key component of joint attention. Although the gaze from a robot induces gaze following, the impact of mental state attribution on robotic gaze following remains unclear. To address this question, we asked forty-nine young adults to perform a gaze cueing task during which mental state attribution was manipulated as follows. Participants sat facing a robot that turned its head to the screen at its left or right. Their task was to respond to targets that appeared either at the screen the robot gazed at or at the other screen. At the baseline, the robot was positioned so that participants would perceive it as being able to see the screens. We expected faster response times to targets at the screen the robot gazed at than targets at the non-gazed screen (i.e., gaze cueing effect). In the experimental condition, the robot's line of sight was occluded by a physical barrier such that participants would perceive it as unable to see the screens. Our results revealed gaze cueing effects in both conditions although the effect was reduced in the occluded condition compared to the baseline. These results add to the expanding fields of social cognition and human-robot interaction by suggesting that mentalizing has an impact on robotic gaze following.

Mating Strategies and the Masculinity Paradox: How Relationship Context, Relationship Status, and Sociosexuality Shape Women's Preferences for Facial Masculinity and Beardedness.

According to the dual mating strategy model, in short-term mating contexts women should forego paternal investment qualities in favor of mates with well-developed secondary sexual characteristics and dominant behavioral displays. We tested whether this model explains variation in women's preferences for facial masculinity and beardedness in male faces. Computer-generated composites that had been morphed to appear ± 50% masculine were rated by 671 heterosexual women (M age = 31.72 years, SD = 6.43) for attractiveness when considering them as a short-term partner, long-term partner, a co-parent, or a friend. They then completed the Revised Sociosexual Inventory (SOI-R) to determine their sexual openness on dimensions of desire, behavior, and attitudes. Results showed that women's preferences were strongest for average facial masculinity, followed by masculinized faces, with feminized faces being least attractive. In contrast to past research, facial masculinity preferences were stronger when judging for co-parenting partners than for short-term mates. Facial masculinity preferences were also positively associated with behavioral SOI, negatively with desire, and were unrelated to global or attitudinal SOI. Women gave higher ratings for full beards than clean-shaven faces. Preferences for beards were higher for co-parenting and long-term relationships than short-term relationships, although these differences were not statistically significant. Preferences for facial hair were positively associated with global and attitudinal SOI, but were unrelated to behavioral SOI and desire. Although further replication is necessary, our findings indicate that sexual openness is associated with women's preferences for men's facial hair and suggest variation in the association between sociosexuality and women's facial masculinity preferences.

Microbes and masculinity: Does exposure to pathogenic cues alter women's preferences for male facial masculinity and beardedness?

Women's preferences for men's androgen dependent secondary sexual traits are proposed to be phenotypically plastic in response to exposure to pathogens and pathogen disgust. While previous studies report that masculinity in facial shape is more attractive to women who have recently been exposed to pathogenic cues and who are high in self-reported pathogen disgust, facial hair may reduce male attractiveness under conditions of high pathogens as beards are a possible breeding ground for disease carrying ectoparasites. In the present study, we test whether women's preferences for beardedness and facial masculinity vary due to exposure to different pathogenic cues. Participants (N = 688, mean age + 1SD = 31.94 years, SD = 6.69, range = 18-67) rated the attractiveness of facial composite stimuli of men when they were clean-shaven or fully bearded. These stimuli were also manipulated in order to vary sexual dimorphism by ±50%. Ratings were conducted before and after exposure to one of four experimental treatments in which participants were primed to either high pathogens (e.g. infected cuts), ectoparasites (e.g. body lice), a mixture of pathogens and ectoparasites, or a control condition (e.g. innocuous liquids). Participants then completed the three-domain disgust scale measuring attitudes to moral, sexual and pathogen disgust. We predicted that women would prefer facial masculinity following exposure to pathogenic cues, but would show reduced preferences for facial hair following exposure to ectoparasites. Women preferred full beards over clean-shaven faces and masculinised over feminised faces. However, none of the experimental treatments influenced the direction of preferences for facial masculinity or beardedness. We also found no association between women's self-reported pathogen disgust and their preferences for facial masculinity. However, there was a weak positive association between moral disgust scores and preferences for facial masculinity, which might reflect conservatism and preferences for gender typicality in faces. Women's preferences for beards were positively associated with their pathogen disgust, which runs contrary to our predictions and may reflect preferences for high quality individuals who can withstand any costs of beardedness, although further replications are necessary before firm conclusions can be made. We conclude that there is little support for pathogenic exposure being a mechanism that underpins women's directional preferences for masculine traits.