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  1. #1
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    Default Visual vs. Olfactory

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    Those following this forum are familiar with the debates about visual vs. olfactory influence in human sexuality. JVK and others have certainly opened my eyes to the influence of pheros on human sexual development and mate selection. It is also clear there is a correlation between the traditional concept of male and female beauty, and the hormone levels of these \'beautiful\' people. Good looks are a visual cue of the person\'s elevated levels of sex hormones and superior genetics in general. Further, those higher levels of sex hormones will naturally express themselves in the person\'s scent/phero signature - good looking people smell good as well as look good, and this is all tied to their superior hormone/genetic status.

    But I have a bit of reluctance to say that the visual concepts of good looks are solely conditioned by people\'s olfactory experience. That argument holds that we only think gooklooking people are attractive because we have unconsciously associated their looks with their desirability that has been triggered by our lifelong olfactory experience of these superior folk. That is, they have seemed desirable to us because of our sensing of their pheros, and we have associated that desirability with their visual markers of superior hormone status - their \'good looks\'. Or, you could say they unconsciously \'smelled\' good to us, so we associated that desirability with the conscious look of those people, which is distinctive, controlled by their hormones like their pheros, and which happens to conform to the classic ideas of \'beauty\'. But I don\'t think that argument tells the whole story.

    I think there is an innate ability to visually recognize the \'look\' of desirable people apart from olfactory experience. I think this ability is present prior to the final sexualization at puberty. Taking nothing away from olfaction/phero-detection, I think that at puberty our phero detection system comes online in a sexual way, and begins to reinforce our previous concepts of beauty, in terms of the opposite sex. In short, I think we have redundant channels to detect desirable mates - visual and olfactory. And since sexually superior people present both visual cues (facial features driven by hormone levels @ puberty) and olfactory cues (higher hormone levels equate to more ;powerful phero production, since pheros are metabolites of sex hormones), it makes sense that we might be able to process both these cues as redundant signals of mate desirability.

    I present a few ideas to bolster this claim, and invite the inevitable explanations of why it is wrong.

    BACKGROUND:

    The ability to detect human faces is in place essentially at birth, and is not subject to conditioned plasticity of the brain like some other functions. [Farah et. al., Early commitment of neural structure substrates for face recognition. Cog. Neuropsychology Feb-May 2000].

    In fact, within an hour of birth babies can reliably imitate numerous adult facial expressions. This occurs so early it is implausible to think they have learned it - this facility with facial \'understanding\' is somehow in place from genetic encoding [Meltzoff, Infants understanding of people and things, 1995 The Body and Self]

    Infants already recognize and prefer traditionally attractive faces [Facial diversity and infant preferences for attractive faces, Developmental Psych 27 (1991)]

    MY POINT

    From infancy we have the ability to detect and mimic faces, and have an innate preference for traditionally attractive faces. Further, the area of the brain committed to facial recognition is not particularly \'plastic\', and therefore not as prone to lifelong conditioning as other areas of the brain. To me this all suggests we are born with an innate and relatively fixed visual perception of what constitutes an attractive face.

    At puberty our previously inactive scent glands activate, and at that time I think we begin to sense sex pheromones of the opposite sex, and feel resulting sex attraction. We begin to associate that attraction with visual concepts of beauty, already in place. People with the most attractive phero signature will coincide with those exhibiting attractive facial/body markers (both are produced by hormone level), so the two channels (visual and olfactory) reinforce one another. What we have always known was \'pretty\' or \'handsome\' will now have an added component of sexual attraction, fueled no doubt by the unconscious phero effects the \'beautiful\' people have on us.

    To me this tracks with common experience. 1) Very young kids can visually point out a pretty girl or handsome man, long before they are capable of sexual attraction to them. 2) Heterosexuals can identify and appreciate the beauty/sexual attractiveness of those of the same gender, without feeling any attraction to them. If we only perceived beauty from olfactory-driven desireassociations, we could not identify the \'beautiful ones\' of our own gender, having never felt desire for them. 3) Our phero system relating to sexuality & desirability appears to activate at puberty. We have a concept of attractiveness of both genders well before that.

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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    Very well written, nothing I haven\'t said already though.

    I think, that it doens\'t matter WHAT I say on this board, so long as it\'s written good, people wil listen, I said hte sxact same thing, except for the faces part.

    But,I dio agree, and, also, I think that, if someoen looks at your face, and, it is not up to par, than the pheromones you wear will not help, I think pheormones are going to \"enhance\" yourself, but not change it.

    It\'s like a hot girl with makeup, if you\'re a hot girl, you\'re hot, whether you use makeup or not...If you are ugly, and you use makeup, you are JUST as ugly as before. That is why someoen people do not get results. And, hot girls wearing makeup doesn\'t make them too much more attractive, but, like a tounge ring, or any other piercing, or tatto, and, pehromnes as well, it says, I\'m putting out. That is what I think, anyway.

    Bart

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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    Good post Irish, yours are always a joy to read! I think this sums up the argument pretty well.

    <blockquote><font class=\"small\">In reply to:</font><hr>

    The ability to detect human faces is in place essentially at birth

    <hr></blockquote>
    Just a piece of related information, interpret it as you wish. There is a blind man who has been blind all of his life. He recently undertook some surgery which restored partial vision, although most things are still blurry. This man is unable to recognise a human face. He is also unable to differenciate between the genders by visual recognition alone. People are trying to teach him the visual cues that help us identify the genders, but he still has trouble with it.

    <blockquote><font class=\"small\">In reply to:</font><hr>

    To me this all suggests we are born with an innate and relatively fixed visual perception of what constitutes an attractive face.

    <hr></blockquote>
    It think we also need to think about social conditioning. How many times has a girl become attractive once people started to give her attention.

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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    ALthough mothers recongize their children by sight and also by scent.
    Pheromones as per say just arent sexual messengers but also emotional messages, there are 1000s of compounds given off in human sweat. Babies seem to be able to recongize mothers even thought their sight may not be perfect yet.

    The ability to unconsciously detect all pheromone type realises is hardwired from before birth. Ok the visual thing is important i prefer to say that pheromone detection drives visual motivations ie looking around, and any behaviours that are demostrated by a person on their own or independant of pheromone detection may just come down to the body maintaining that behaviour for when it is required or its an automatic learned behaviour (ie tourettes syndrome is a condition where the automatic behaviour memory section part of the brain is haywire - leading to some unusuall behaviours such as verbal spats, head twitching and excessive smelling of objects are common)
    Autism in males is due to a lack of or an inability to detect androgens when they are young and developing, this is evident in a lack of emotion and as we know emotion is driven by exposure to androgens/pheromones and this relates to sexual behaviour and bonding resulting in reproductive behaviour and events.

    Pheromones have also been shown as far as detecting ability to be backward in homosexual and bi-sexual people ie gay men detect male pheromones and get turned on sexually/emotionally to other males. This is all countered to some effect by the conscious part of the human brain which is a recent evolution in our speices which may give rise to the visual system appearing to be more important because when the higher brain kicks in it can to a certain extent cover up pheromone unconscious response when known about me for instances i can consciously switch off to pheros.

    This may cover some of this discussion, although both parties are technically correct so far.

  5. #5
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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    Irish, what about this? Standards of beauty vary from culture to culture. Pictures out of National Geographic keep popping into my head every time this discussion gets raised. Women with three dozen neck rings on \'till they look like giraffes. Or even, look at the pictures of Egyptian women, slight shouldered, small breasted, elongated bodies, wide hips - which I always thought were caricatures to some extent until I actually met a young black woman who had a figure exactly like that. ... this would seem to me to have significance as far as visual cues being as important as olfactory cues.

    The argument\'s been made that male babies learn to love large breasted women from breast feeding, because their mother\'s breasts appear huge to them while they\'re nursing ...but in the case of the Egyptian ideal of beauty, for example - they breast fed their babies ... their breasts must have appeared huge to their babies ... but the ideal of feminine beauty in that culture remained a woman who was quite small in her upper body and much wider in the hips and thighs than we would now consider perfect.

    Social conditioning and visual cues have to have bearing, because we don\'t all find the same things beautiful.




  6. #6
    Banned User jvkohl's Avatar
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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    Irish,
    Despite attempts to include innate visual recognition in many different discussions (particularly with other researchers), no one has has proposed a means for its development, plasiticity, sexual dimorphism etc. In contrast, a recent report by I. Savic showed that male/female pheromones activated different parts of the brain in males/females. These parts of the brain are connected to visual pathways. Note, no one went looking for a visual recognition system that was somehow linked to olfaction.

    There are reasons to look only in the olfactory-visual direction, and not the visual-olfactory direction when it comes to behavior, especially sexual behavior. These reasons include virtually every aspect of mammalian developmental neuroendocrinology and neuroanatomy.

    You wrote:
    --------------------------
    I think there is an innate ability to visually recognize the \'look\' of desirable people apart from olfactory experience. I think this ability is present prior to the final sexualization at puberty... I think that at puberty our phero detection system comes online in a sexual way, and begins to reinforce our previous concepts of beauty, in terms of the opposite sex. ... I think we have redundant channels to detect desirable mates - visual and olfactory.
    ----------------------------------

    I don\'t mean to sound the least bit harsh, but many people THINK the same way you do. But thinking it, doesn\'t
    make it so, and there is plenty of data that suggests it just ain\'t so.

    When I began to think that sexual attraction could not be a function of vision (First clue: my ex screwed a guy who wasn\'t as good looking as me), and started to promote an olfactory model, which led to an olfactory conditioning model, many people told me to \"prove it.\" Though I could never prove that Terri screwed Ed because he smelled better than me, many people now accept olfactory conditioning of the visual sexual responsell. Indeed, no one I know about has in the past 15 years, presented any data, any model, or anything else that would begin to make me rethink olfactory conditioning, or to look at the importance of visual input by comparison.

    I suggest that your thinking about the sexual response cycle is so dependent upon olfactory conditioning, that you might never think your thoughts could be so dependent on olfactory conditioning: a circular argument that goes nowhere. Simply put, like others who have exceptionally powerfull thinking abilities, you may be caught up in an illusion that will not allow you to fully examine or acknowledge the reality of olfactory conditioning. To me, one drawback of conscious perception and thinking is that it allows for an illusion of life that is far beyond biological reality.

    Biological reality tells us that pheromones alter hormone levels as soon as we\'re out of the womb and throughout life. By the time we are adolescents, our response to visual stimuli is conditioned by the olfactory cues we have been subjected to, and as we grow older this conditioning continues. In contrast, visual input conditions nothing. It may guide us to choice, but those choices are dependent upon the association of visual input with olfactory input--not vice versa.

    You wrote BACKGROUND:

    The ability to detect human faces is in place essentially at birth, and is not subject to conditioned plasticity of the brain like some other functions. [Farah et. al., Early commitment of neural structure substrates for face recognition. Cog. Neuropsychology Feb-May 2000].
    ---------------
    Here there is a huge difference between \"essentially at birth\" and a fully developed sexually dimorphic olfactory system that responds immediately to pheromones from the opposite sex, in a different manner than those of the same sex. Regarding \"early commitment of neural structure substates\" these substrates are not sexually dimorphic, and many more genes code for neural substrates of olfaction than of vision. Some of these genes also are expressed when exposed to pheromone-dependent hormonal activation during social circumstances.
    ---------
    In fact, within an hour of birth babies can reliably imitate numerous adult facial expressions. This occurs so early it is implausible to think they have learned it - this facility with facial \'understanding\' is somehow in place from genetic encoding [Meltzoff, Infants understanding of people and things, 1995 The Body and Self]
    ---------
    These babies may not be imitating, but rather exhibiting facial expressions common to the species due to commonality in nerves, muscles, other tissue that allow for what appears to be mimicry. How many genes might Meltzoff think would need to be involved in this ability to mimic facial expressions? It seems to me that he is proposing some theory that has no basis in biology; it just \"looks\" like this is what\'s happening.
    -----------
    Infants already recognize and prefer traditionally attractive faces [Facial diversity and infant preferences for attractive faces, Developmental Psych 27 (1991)]
    ---------------------
    Didn\'t Keith Kendricks do something like this with sheep? I know he proposed that cross-fostered infants preferred, as adult, the \"look\" of the cross-fostered mother--despite the fact that these animals sniffed the genitals of the females before mounting them (from behind of course--not a visual thing). Besides traditionally attractive faces are those with symmetrical features linked to odor preferences for the scent of symmetry.

    The lack of a visual model remains as an important missing link, unless there\'s something like the above studies that cannot be explained using an olfactory model.

    Kind thoughts. I always enjoy your posts,



  7. #7
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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    JVK, all -

    I am not arguing against the Kohl model - I accept it for the most part. As I understand it:

    *Triggering pheros are involved in the development of human infants, esp. the early gender organization of boys.
    *There are human \'primer\' pheros from males that affect the sexual development and puberty onset of young girls.
    * There are human primer pheros that synchronize menstruation cycles of women living in close continuous proximity.
    * We have a latent gender-dimorphic phero system that activates at puberty. Men and women send and receive each others\' phero signals, which are often registered subconsciously and have a significant (if not primary) affect on sexual attraction. This system operates by altering the hormone state of those receiving phero signals.
    * There are probably many other human phero signals involved in fear messages, sibling detection, etc.

    I think a strong case can be made for all the above, forgive me if I\'ve omitted parts of it. There are studies and logic to support these points. I buy it for now.

    What I think is unsubstantiated is the claim that given the above, there can be no coexisting visual component of sexual attraction, apart from olfactory conditioning. That idea doesn\'t necessarily follow, and I gave some reasons that suggest olfaction and vision are actually redundant channels, and at least partially independent. We can of course pick apart the studies I\'ve cited (we could do that on the olfaction studies too!), but I will content myself to cite a few more points and finish up.

    I am accepting the olfactory sex-attraction model, but adding a redundant visual channel, which my reading suggests may NOT be exclusively conditioned by olfaction. We can focus discussion there if we like.

    BTW, I don\'t \'think it\' because it came to mind or I like the idea, I think it because of evidence I\'ve read. I am also happy to abandon it if the evidence is refuted, not merely dismissed because it doesn\'t conform to an existing model. I\'m not interested in winning arguments, only fully explaining what light we have. If evidence doesn\'t fit our model we must explain it, not explain it away - either the evidence is false, or our reasoning is faulty, or our model needs tweaking. Opinions are irrelevant if they don\'t conform to truth - science and reasoning are imperfect tools but often the best we have, and always better than rank speculation, superstition, ego, etc. That said…

    I was pointing to an ability to visually prefer \'symmetric\' individuals of both genders, even from infancy. And that the area of the brain that processes attractive faces is not a good candidate for conditioning, by olfaction or otherwise. This ability would not require a gender-dimorphic vision system since it transcends sexual attraction - we can spot \'good looking\'/symmetric people of both genders even before we are old enough to become sexually attracted to the \'good-looking\' subset of the opposite gender.

    To argue against innate genetic coding of facial preference simply on the idea of \'innateness\' is to also argue against the olfactory model as well. The olfactory model is an innate genetically coded system that programs the development of sending/receiving equipment, and through exposure to others\' signals ultimately leads to a sexual attraction to symmetric individuals. How is that genetically coded? How the olfactory preference for symmetry?? Same as any other innate system. A visual preference for symmetry is actually simpler and no less plausible than an olfactory preference for symmetry that requires chemo signals to accomplish a similar goal. They wind up in the same place - attracted to symmetric individuals. Both genetically coded, with olfaction requiring more complex physical systems to be deployed to get there. What we are talking about here is open-parameter vs. specified-parameter abilities - humans and most animals exhibit both and both are \'innate\' and genetically encoded. Scent organs, sight organs, preferences derived via those organs - all ultimately genetically coded whether online at birth or online after development/puberty/interactions.

    A few more points - I won\'t bother digging up the journal citations since I don\'t think that really helps on this forum. Maybe we can at least agree on the following:

    * Dual-channel (visual-olfactory) sex-signaling occurs in the animal kingdom. Animals often exhibit contrasting color marks in sexual areas and in scent-producing areas of the animal. It makes sense too, to be able to visually assess sex and status cues when \'downwind\' or at a distance.
    * \'Attractive\' people apparently are so because of genetics/hormone status. They exhibit both olfactory cues (hormone levels expressed in their pheros, esp. after puberty) and visual cues (masculinized and feminized features, driven by hormone levels at puberty). I think we can agree humans assess both cues, and should usually get the same answer through either channel. Where vision is useful is to detect incidental damage history of an individual, apart from genetic/hormone status. For example, a guy with great genes (and therefore \'smells\' great) may have a crushed limb from an accident, and therefore be rejected as a mate on visual grounds. A redundant channel is therefore useful at the species-survival level, and vision cues can/should override olfactory cues on occasion. Precisely because vision does directly involve consciousness, which is not always inferior to unconscious/emotional input!! I like my forebrain - it can be useful at times!
    * A human olfactory-driven system of any type must be thoroughly dysfunctional in our society, since our hygiene practices greatly reduce and radically alter the olfactory signals we send our fellows.

    Even if we agree that humans use a dual-channel assessment of potential mates, I fear we will disagree that the visual channel could be innate, as innate (but simpler) than the olfactory channel. I don\'t rule out olfactory conditioning of the visual channel, actually I think both channels overlap after puberty concerning symmetric members of the opposite sex. But I see no compelling reason that the visual channel MUST necessarily be EXCLUSIVELY conditioned by the olfactory channel, and there is some evidence that in fact it is not. The fact that the olfactory channel is sexually dimorphic proves only that it is involved exclusively in sexual matters, not that it is the sole non-conditioned channel related to sex. A visual assessment of symmetry need not be limited to those we are sexually oriented towards or attracted to, but also have broader application.

    Looks to me like humans can visually assess symmetry of both genders, from early on. After development stages we can identify symmety by olfaction, but here limited to the opposite sex and libido. There\'s a study [I know - must be flawed!] showing people visually identify attractive faces of both genders in precisely the same area of the brain. I think (sorry - thinking again!) that at puberty the gender-dimorphic olfactory system kicks in, attraction for the opposite sex fires up, and we find ourselves attracted to one half of the human group we had always visually noticed were symmetric - the symmetric opposite sex.

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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    I hope we can agree that there are hardwired visual models for at least NON-sexual responses.

    The classic is the visual reaction to severed heads. Primates seem to react with horror to their first view of a severed head of one of their own species. This has been noted in chimpanzees who have not had prior exposure and hence no prior conditioning and it certainly occurs in humans. The display of the head of an enemy or challenger is an age-old method of intimidation by the powerful.

    In American culture, a relative lack of public pheromone signatures for early conditioning based on more thorough hygene would be expected to do what with visual judgments of sexual attractiveness? Would it make us less interested in sex compared to smellier cultures since there is less conditioning?

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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    Not sure what the lack of phero signals does, but it\'s bound to have an effect, esp. if olfaction is so critical in our development and interaction. We are like a bunch of radios turned on, but receiving only static or weak signals.

    I brought that up really as an argument against the idea that olfaction is so critically important. Whatever our olfaction system does is surely altered or turned way down by our hygeine, but it doesn\'t seem to be playing that much havoc with our exisance. Maybe it\'s not all that critical after all. Maybe other factors are as important or can substitute for olfaction - redundant channels.

    Sometimes you can discover the effect of a process by turning it off. American hygeine takes a big step toward turning off the phero/olfactory interactive system between people. I\'m sure it has an important effect, but we don\'t seem thoroughly devastated as an animal group either, do we?

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    Banned User jvkohl's Avatar
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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    Irish,
    You\'re rising to the top of my list containing people with whom I most enjoy debate. There may be a redundant visual channel not conditioned by olfaction, I agree. What puzzles me is why no evidence for this redundancy has been presented. I\'ve seen reports on the \"Golden Triangle\" at least I think that\'s what its called: a geometric overlay that predicts facial attraction (and other types of attractive features also). But to my knowledge this does not explain sex differences.

    -----------------------
    I was pointing to an ability to visually prefer \'symmetric\' individuals of both genders, even from infancy. And that the area of the brain that processes attractive faces is not a good candidate for conditioning, by olfaction or otherwise.
    ---------------------------------------
    Good point; I\'m too caught up in sex differences to pick up on it. Thanks for reiterating. Re: the issue of genetic coding. With olfaction this is done via genes that alter development of the gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) neuronal system. Kallmann\'s syndrome is the best example; where one gene perturbs the development of both the olfactory system and the GnRH neuronal system. Those affected are congenitally anosmic (at birth). Since the scent of symmetry is preferred, and because it correlates with sex steroid hormone levels during development, which correlate with pheromone production, it\'s fairly easy to make the case for genetically determined pheromonal conditioning of the preference for symmetry. I\'m not at all sure that you could get from genetic coding to a visual preference for symmetry, and even if you could, the issue of sex differences rears its asymmetric (ugly) head. Also, the issue of when the preference for symmetry develops seems paramount. If infants at day one exhibit this preference; it\'s most likely innate. At day two or later it may already have been conditioned.

    ----------------------------
    A visual assessment of symmetry need not be limited to those we are sexually oriented towards or attracted to, but also have broader application.
    ---------------------------------

    Another good point, which I can easily miss due to my focus on sex differences. Perhaps this is where room for debate comes in. I see that you do not necessarily debate the role of pheromones and conditioning. However, I want to debate the role of vision and conditioning. Tactically, I include a biological perspective that if visual conditioning occurs, it must be accompanied by a hormone response. This hormonal link is missing from the visual conditioning picture. So, maybe someone will find that symmetry alters dopamine levels associated with reward mechanisms. But until something like this is found, you can probably understand why I get frustrated when people say \"I think this is what happens.\" It may actually be what happens, but we already know what\'s happening with olfaction. And most people, unlike you, do not accept the role of olfaction; they drop back to an untenable visual position in an attempt to debate relative importance.

    Even you have done this, albeit to a minimal degree. When you mention the influence of hygeine, for example, and ultimately bring in the fact that the olfactory signals we send are reduced, you do not include info that we can detect genetic differences in others: sniff out their tissue type, regardless of hygeine. These genetic differences are especially important to species survival. I think that if the visual system allows for redundant signal affects, there would be some need for us to \"see\" differences in tissue type.

    I\'m not sure I\'ve addressed all the points you made; I\'m getting too tired to continue. Hope you will let me know if my logic is skewed, or if there\'s something else I should address. We can be sure that, at some point, someone else will ask similar questions. I hope to rely on you to help ensure that I am better prepared with answers.

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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    JVK -I don\'t think we have enough points of disagreement to actually debate, although I\'m long-winded enough to make it appear so.

    I accept the role of olfaction/pheros as you present it…it\'s obviously intertwined with our sexual development, and heavily involved in our sexual activity. If form follows function, then the mere fact that we have scent glands that activate at puberty, and a sexually dimorphic system in the brain for interpreting opposite-gender scent signals, should be evidence enough for any naysayer about the role of olfaction in sex.

    Having bought into the power of olfaction, the question for me lately has been the role of sight in sex. I think that JVK has been saying that since sight is not a sexually dimorphic system, and \'inborn\' sight preferences are unlikely, then the role of sight in sex is conditioned (perhaps unconsciously) by lifelong olfactory associations.

    I begin to quibble there not because I feel sight is preeminent over olfaction, but because of some evidences I noticed in my reading. I\'ll try to summarize those points quickly and get off this, because it\'s really not that important. I think most everyone agrees that sight has a role in sex and attractiveness - whether it\'s conditioned by olfaction, or at least partially innate, probably is not worth too much mental effort.

    First, I make a general argument that an \'innate\' visual preference for symmetry is not implausible, at least no more implausible than an olfactory preference for symmetry. I talked about delayed-presentation systems (like those appearing at puberty) and systems appearing at birth both being genetically programmed. The fact that olfactory preferences present later in development and in response to socio-sexual cues make them no more innate or genetically programmed - if anything it makes olfactory responses look more conditioned than preferences occurring from birth. I don\'t think JVK is arguing that olfactory preferences are conditioned! I only mentioned this because it was suggested that the very idea of innate visual preferences was ridiculous. There is in fact a small body of evidence that infants recognize and prefer human faces - the earliest evidence of which I read about was 42 minutes from birth. And that they prefer attractive faces. To me this suggests an innate visual ability online at birth. Doesn\'t prove - suggests.

    OK, if it\'s not an absurd concept, what else? There\'s a couple of studies showing where facial attractiveness is processed in the brain. One of interest from University College London showed photos of faces to subjects during brainscans. Attractive faces of both genders lit up a certain area, unattractive faces did not. The results were interesting because \"the response was independent of the sex of the person in the photograph\"…quoting Knut Kampe: \"It is sensible because it is not only rewarding to us if we have an attractive mate. It might be just as rewarding if we meet an attractive person who is interesting or who might promote our career. Our results may show the direction in which this is hardwired into the brain\". I bring this up as another suggestion that we may have innate abilities to visually assess attractive/symmetric people of both genders, apart from any association driven by olfaction. If this is true then the fact that sight is not sexually dimorphic actually coincides with the ability to visually spot symmetry in both genders. If visual preference for symmetry had been entirely driven by unconscious olfactory associations we would have expected a powerful association for opposite-sex attractiveness and something different for same-sex. And also, if in fact sight does not provoke hormonal changes as olfaction does (I\'ll take JVK\'s word on that), that also tracks with the idea of a more general-purpose consciously-wired sight system, vs. an olfactory system geared specifically toward having sexual effects on a target. Again, a suggestion - not a proof.

    Another problem is that our hygiene practices greatly alter/diminish natural human scent signals. How are we managing to efficiently reproduce when we are so disrupting our sexual scent signals? Since we practice hygiene our entire lives we should be seeing major developmental and behavioral disruptions due to lack of olfactory input. Might there be redundant and/or independent channels of sexual info? Are we over-emphasizing the role of olfaction??

    I did try and find a rationale that would account for innate visual and olfactory systems to operate in parallel. Symmetric individuals present distinct visual and scent cues, is it really necessary to read both signals if they say the same thing? That gets into the idea of multi-channel signaling. I\'ll mention one interesting study by Rikowski and Grammer Proc R. Royal Soc (1999) 266, 869-874. Citing Moller\'s work on why birds have multiple sex ornaments, they dig directly into human scent and visual signals:

    \" Each condition-sensitive mate choice criterion reflects the physical state of a possible mate with a certain error. Thus the probability of selecting a truly high-quality mate will be improved when the choosing individual examines two or more sexual traits. This should also be the case for signals of different modalities, that is, multi-channel signals may well provide a better overall indication of mate condition than single-channel information. Fluctuating asymmetry and physical attractiveness both communicate the condition of developmental stability via the visual channel. We hypothesized that human body odour transmits information about an individual\'s developmental stability as an additional, redundant olfactory signal. Since olfactory and visual cues have different physiological roots, the signaling errors are likely to be uncorrelated. Thus, taking the information of both signals into account reduces the error and allows much more reliable mate choice decisions… Body odour seems to be a condition-dependent trait and therefore can be viewed as a redundant signal.\"

    This doesn\'t address directly JVK\'s contention that the visual is conditioned solely by the olfactory, but it does provide a rationale as to why two systems of signal detection might be in place, and suggests why independence of the two systems would be valuable (the value is in the independence of the two signal channels to reduce error). Again, hypothesis and possible rationale, but that\'s what all of this discussion is anyway.

    Also, we needn\'t have an all-or-nothing, one system or the other explanation of sexual evaluation. If there is multi-channel evaluation of sex partners we could have areas of redundancy (probably for critical factors where error-detection is important). We could also have channel-specific signals blending into a composite picture. For instance, I gave an example of how visual detection of a disabled mate would succeed where olfactory detection would fail. JVK pointed out an instance where chemo-detection of a sex-critical condition would work where visual detection would fail. Obviously different organ systems are more suited to different tasks. And back to one of my basic guides (form follows function), if we have different organ systems on the same job we probably need them both to do all tasks associated with that job. Possibilities not proofs, I know…

    I will say that of the two systems olfaction is probably most important in sexual matters, simply because it is sexually-dimorphic and apparently therefore more specific to sex than a more generalized sight system.


    Speculation: Taking all this together I think there is a real suggestion that there exists an innate ability for humans to visually assess the symmetry/attractiveness/beauty of both genders, and this ability is in place prior to puberty (maybe from birth). At puberty libido appears and focuses on the opposite sex - and olfaction, a clearly gender-dimorphic system, is heavily involved in sex behavior. I think at that time our preexisting visual concept of symmetry/beauty becomes welded to our emerging sex drive (fueled by olfaction?) for the opposite sex. In a sense I\'m thinking that the visual and olfactory channels are mutually reinforcing/conditioning, beginning at puberty, at which time existing visual and emerging olfactory preferences for symmetry intersect upon symmetric members of the opposite sex.

    I may change my mind tomorrow.

  12. #12
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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    Perhaps irrelevant to you gentlement\'s discussion, but for what its worth, the observation that humans prefer symmetry in everything - art, architecture, music, for example - does this not suggest an inborn trait that is hardwired and all pervasive, since symmetry pleases all the senses and appears to be necessary for us to feel satisfied in almost every mode.

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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    ok while Im not going to interrupt you two gentleman\'s quite interesting discussion (seriously this has been one of the most interesting threads that Ive read on this board) I just want to add a little of my own personal experience. I may have mentioned the fact that I was involved with a girl in some prior posts (weactually got back together this week thanks to the none that I was wearing...it made me seem powerful to her ..and I dont see how anything else could have changed her mind). Anyways Ive always been very attracted to this girl. I mean...she drives me crazy. Now looks wise...she isnt a ten by far....she isnt extremely beautiful at all...somewhat plain(she would kill me if she heard me say this..hehe). But one thing I have always noticed is that she has a real strong body scent. I mean she has a strong body odor...maybe because of the fact that she doent wear a very powerful deodorant (i can detect this smell coming from her sweat most of the times)...and it is really noticeable. Anyways I have come to the conclusion that it is this girl\'s strong powerful scent that attracts me to her. I mean she isnt very pretty (to where I would gaga for her) and she isnt the nicest person in the world either or has the worlds best personality. I can attest to this because around 2 years ago I was involved with another girl. Now this girl had a great body (very thin, nice face, great breasts...i mean they really stood out , and a nice backside and body overall)..and more importantly she had a great personality...I mean She treated me like a man should be treated and respected me and loved me unconditioanally...but for some reason I never ended up feeling to attracted to her. I could never pinpoint what it was but she never drove me crazy the way this girl does. Body wise this girl had a nicer body which should visually attract me more but I never went crazy over her and ended up breaking up with her on purpose because of my lack of attraction. I know this is only anecdotal evidence...but I thought it was relative to the issue you fellas are discussing. It goes to show (at least in my case) that olfactory attraction totally wins out visual attraction.

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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    Irish wrote a lot and then ended with
    \" I may change my mind tomorrow.\"
    No you may not! You must find a model and stick with it, forever, like me. ; - )

    You may be on to something here with the pubertal transition that encompasses aspects of sexually dimorphic olfactory systems just as this information becomes most necessary. As you say, however, infants can spot symmetry very early in life (and process pheromones even sooner). Pheromones affect GnRH pulsatility from day one; sexual orientation is established by age 6 (according to most reports). If sexual orientation were more maleable for a longer period of time, I\'d be willing to go more with a visual approach to physical attraction that coincides with the olfactory approach at puberty. Since sexual orientation appears to be hardwired by age 6, it\'s hard to imagine more years during which these systems act separately before coming together at puberty. Accordingly, I still have to go with the olfactory conditioning of visually perceived attraction. Find me a hormone response directly linked to visual input though, and I may change my mind tomorrow.

    Your logic with regard to the hard-wired response to attractive faces, despite gender, is great. Guess I would want to see if the same areas light up in homosexual males when looking at faces of either males or females. Still waiting to see what happens in homosexuals exposed to either a male or female pheromone as in Ivana Savic\'s work with males and females. As it stands now, there\'s more evidence for incomplete sexual differentiation of the olfactory system with regard to sexual orientation accross the continuum from female to male. All it would take is a slight difference in the GnRH pulse to accomplish nearly every variation we see in human sexual behavior: asexuality, bisexuality, hetero and homosexuality, transsexuality, plus nearly all the fetishes. Less frequent pulses are associated with cyclic hormone secretion=female; more frequent pulses are associated with tonic hormone secretion =male -------EXCEPT if you prime the homosexual male with estrogens they respond with an LH surge typical of females, which is eliminated in males by tonic hormone secretion (mostly testosterone). Rather than go on a jargon filled rant, I will close.

    Bottom line may be that whoever shows that sexually dimorphic areas of the brain light up in response to visual input from the social environment will do battle with whoever shows that sexually dimorphic areas of the brain light up in response to olfactory input from the social environment. Given any mammalian model, we can predict that olfaction will win the battle. After all, dogs don\'t \"look\" for good \"looking\" females. So, even if you\'re right about both visual and olfactory working together during development, there still is no model that suggests a direct influence of visual input on hormones.


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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    Yes. I had the occassion to listen to Karl Grammer present on this at a conference where Anja Rikowski presented scent and symmetry. However, it\'s still too early for me to get from a generalized preference for symmetry to a preference for facial and bodily features that correlate with olfactory driven preferences for sexually dimorphic odor production.

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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    Good point SonnyBlack,
    I, too, have been attracted to and more aroused by, some relatively plain looking women who just happened to smell great (naturally). I owned a business for 5 years during which I hired 2800 women (to maintain a staff of 100) for a telelphone answering service. Only 4 or 5 of them had this strong olfactory \"draw\" and none of these women were particularly beautiful, two were not at all attractive in any other way. I wish I could have determined via questionaire or whatever, the reason these women smelled so great--it would have made for a great product one day. But, it was not possible to ask the questions I would have needed to ask, due to the litigious climate, which would almost guarentee a sexual harassment lawsuit.

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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    I\'m in a similar boat Sonny !

    Well, I\'m lucky she is also looking above average but she can be such a bitch sometimes! She can push my limits very far tho, because she smells so great. It would take me a lot of time to find another girlfriend like her who smells so great, looks above average, is wise and educated and who\'s interested by me. I have been with her for years now, and now she start to understand the power of her smell, I think I have waked up a monster ! ;-)

    I sometimes tell her, half-joking, that one day I\'ll use the enfleurage technique to extract her smell when she\'s excited. Too bad there\'s no way she would have the patience to participate in such a long process.

    So far, I think she produces lots of \'nol (that\'s what\'s turning my head upside down) but also an above average quantity of \'none (for a woman). She can be very choleric or agressive sometimes (smells more like \'none) or she can be extremely foxy and charming (then she smells more like \'nol). Her most amazing smell is in between (when she also end up having agressive sex with me).

    How can I know ? I\'m experimenting with the chem set...what a great tool to identify those smells ! It\'s not exactly the same thing tho, it\'s like smelling an artificial escence of pine and compare it to the smell of a whole forest. I\'m also testing those phero on my skin and I obviously don\'t have the same body chemistry so it can\'t be the same.

    I could try to re-create her smell using synthetic pheros but then again, I would have to re-create it for a particular girl, because the full smell of the pheros comes out after some time on the skin and it interact with the body chemistry...

    Anyway... I\'ll have to get my hands on a sample of EW ...too bad I forgot to ask Bruce when I sent my last order.

    I will need to find out what combinaison of pheros match her own because I already told her that one day I\'ll create a perfume just for her and of course I want to put some phero in there but I don\'t want to change her phero signature, I just want to amplify it because it\'s just perfect as it is.


    By the way, need I say that this girl have never been single for more than some weeks sinse she\'s 15 ? There\'s a fukking line-up over there, vultures, waiting.

    If I make her such a perfume I better have a damn good one for myself before! Or maybe I\'ll just crank up the \'none in her perfume so everybody will see her as a queen but won\'t dare to try funny things behind my back ;-).






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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    I reply to SonnyBlack\'s earliest post:

    I too have felt myself very attracted to a somewhat plain woman at one moment! She did have a nice personality though! At first, I wasn\'t interested in here one bit, but after a lot of interaction, I really came to like the girl, even loved the girl. And maybe needless to say, she did have a nice scent.

    Then why do we say here that better genes and scent means better looks and vice versa? That\'s what I noticed in some earlier posts: attractiveness means better scent and better genes! In this case, it wasn\'t really tue: she wasn\'t all that attractive (if you\'d see the girl, there\'s no way you\'d think of here as an attractive person), I do not think she had the better genes (she was very smart, but body-wise, there are probably way better genes) but she did smell good though. Beauty and phero signature have gotten nothing to do with each other IMO!

    Women\'s priority in finding men attractive is their scent, then humor and personality, then the physical looks. WOmen are more sensitive to odors and smell, they have a better sense of smelling!
    As in men, their preferences in selecting females is body, face etc. The visual factors are way more important to men then they are to women. And men have a worse sense of smell to women?
    Now compare this to let\'s say dogs! They have a very good sense of smell, way more important than their sense of vision, in the mating game, too! Pheromones defintely are very important in animals!
    Another thing that makes me think pheros aren\'t THE most important things or the only important thing in humans is that we seem to have troubles finding pheromones and how they work in humans. We know a lot about pheromones in animals, and how their entire behaviour is based on them, but in humans, we even have problems knowing how they exactly work and stuff. I mean, there\'s only a select group of people believing in the importance of human phermones, while practically everyone believes in pheros in animals, so there\'s got to be a reason behind that.
    If you spray a female pig with -nol, you can see if she\'s ready to mate. Isn\'t that an extraordinary thing? One little chemical compound giving such a huge difference in behaviour, a pig instinctively changes its behaviour because of one chemical compound! Let me tell you one thing: I think that if pheromones were THE factor in human attraction, that would mean that the stuff some commercial sites spread about -mones would actually be true. Women would be jumping at you, they\'d litterally ask you to [censored] them right there and right now! Now the reason they do not act like that is because attraction in humans is just more complex!
    We are more complex! Not only in the greater variety of things that determines who and what we are, what we do, and why we do it, but also in things (i.e. quantity) but in the things we share with animals too (i.e. in quality in this case). We can think ourselves while animals act instinctively.
    Compare it to fashion: something that\'s the greatest thing at one time, is considered to be the most ugly thing late on. A lot of people change accordingly! (I do not though: I know what I like, and if it\'s the exact opposite of what\'s fashionnable at the moment, then that will not influence my thought in any way.) I do not think that animals are capable of changing their preferences to the complete opposite because of whatever reason!

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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    Watcher, that, is something intresting. I also have noticed that, there is an off and on, rather than a halfway, full, pheros on...

    And, yes, like I said before, about, visual ovveriding the pheros, and, the part of the brain controlling automatic reaction. It\'s just...Evolution, you are BORN to like the opposite sex, (unless you are hardwired wrong) even without pheros....

    This is now my current conclusion though.. I think it depends, I think some people have learned to rely more on visual , others on pheros. I think it varies. It may also vary between cultrues too, I do not know.

    Bart

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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    --------When I began to think that sexual attraction could not be a function of vision (First clue: my ex screwed a guy who wasn\'t as good looking as me), and started to promote an olfactory model, which led to an olfactory conditioning model, many people told me to \"prove it.\" Though I could never prove that Terri screwed Ed because he smelled better than me, many people now accept olfactory conditioning of the visual sexual responsell. Indeed, no one I know about has in the past 15 years, presented any data, any model, or anything else that would begin to make me rethink olfactory conditioning, or to look at the importance of visual input by comparison.-------

    Yes, but, who did she end up with to BEGIN with? My theory...You were better looking, so, she married YOU. However, BECAUSE, you didn\'t have the pheromones, you weren\'t giving her the hormonal excitement of that other guy.

    But, what you said did not disprove that visual had nothing to do with it...If she was PHEROMONALLY conditioned to you, how did she ALL THE SUDDEN beomome pheromonally conditioned to the other guy? I think she saw you, and, you were more\"beautiful\" in the sense, she married you, however, he had more pheros...Which, another thing.


    -----t Keith Kendricks do something like this with sheep? I know he proposed that cross-fostered infants preferred, as adult, the \"look\" of the cross-fostered mother--despite the fact that these animals sniffed the genitals of the females before mounting them (from behind of course--not a visual thing). Besides traditionally attractive faces are those with symmetrical features linked to odor preferences for the scent of symmetry. ------

    Ok, this may prove of pheromonal conditioining, HOWEVER, this ALSO proves that it is MORE important to have a better looking face (maybe because you are pheromonaly conditioned, doesn\'t MATTER) than it is to have prominant pheromones. It\'s MORE important to have the right body, because of pheromonal conditioning than it is to put on these synthetic pheromones from lovescent that gives you mroe prominant, dominant, alpha male pheromones...And, I don\'t think many women care about pheormnes v.s. visual UNLESS it\'s the situation as in the bar, where there\'s alcohol, a club where there\'s dancing, etc, where, people are thinking more like an animal.

    Bart




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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    MaxiMoog,
    I usually avoid plugging my book, but will make an exception in this case. You need to read it! Nearly everything you said in this last post is directly presented with evidence showing why pheromones are more important than visual input. For example, we have the same ability as dogs to sniff out genetic differences that determine our tissue type. Also, we know a lot about pheromones in animals and we are animals. Finally, several people commenting on the fact that plain women have attracted them DOES NOT refute all of the evidence for human pheromones.

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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    Bart wrote:
    \"And, I don\'t think many women care about pheormnes v.s. visual UNLESS it\'s the situation as in the bar, where there\'s alcohol, a club where there\'s dancing, etc, where, people are thinking more like an animal.\"

    Bart,
    You have not yet grasped the concept of human pheromones; read my book!

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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    Very well, point taken! I\'ll get it in my next order. [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

    Sometimes ignorance is bless, but this is something I\'d rather know the real deal about!

    Just one last thing: why are there so little people believing in pheromones? Tell people that animals and insects communicate by spreading chemical substances and they\'ll take your word. Tell them that we communicate the same way, and they\'ll go: \"NO WAY!\" (unless they\'ve been here or read your book)

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    Default Re: Visual vs. Olfactory

    People think about what they see; pheromones affect us whether or not we consciously perceive them. None of the biologists I know has any doubt about the importance of human pheromones--a change that\'s taken place in the past 7 years with new data from human studies. It takes at least one generation before new science can take hold, and get to the point where most people understand the importance. Once you read the book, you can pose questions to women like: Do you ever wake up on your lover\'s side of the bed, when he\'s gone--and about 100 other questions that knowledge of pheromones can answer. You\'ll be surprised how little prompting it takes to make people realize the importance of pheromones--even though they don\'t think much about them day-to-day.

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