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Pupils, Hotties and Hormones: A Modern Replication of the Hess Pupillary Reactivity Study.

Poster Session D - Monday, March 31, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Katie Cooke¹, Hannah Kershner², Carole Scherling PhD.³; ¹Belmont University, Department of Psychological Science and Neuroscience

Physiological responses to stimuli vary between groups and individuals, providing objective and quantitative behavioral measures (Gheorghe, 2023). Notably, pupillary measures probe subconscious reactions to stimuli (Matukin, 2016). Hess (1960) revealed sex disparities in pupil dilation to photos of naked adults and babies, with all showing increased dilation for the opposite sex, and females additionally dilating for babies. This work modernizes the above study with updated images and pupillary technology and considers hormones. Sixty-four undergraduates (41F; age (SD)=20.56(1.33)) viewed forty photographs of babies, landscapes, scantily-clad females and males; 10 each) while pupillary indices were recorded. Saliva was collected for hormonal analyses, and menstrual cycle and sexual preference were self-reported. Like Hess, we hypothesize increased pupil dilation for all when viewing the opposite sex, but only for females when viewing babies. Preliminary results do not reveal sex differences when viewing landscapes and adult pictures (p>0.05). However, increased pupillary responses were only seen for females when viewing babies (t(5)=2.279, p=0.54). Notably, a trend suggests larger responses when viewing female pictures, regardless of participant biological sex (p=0.74). Further, we hypothesize that estrogen will modulate female pupil size, with higher levels yielding greater dilation to babies. Salivary estrogen and menstrual cycle data are being analyzed. Last, we hypothesize that pupil dilation will be higher when viewing adult pictures that correspond to self-reported sexual preference. Data processing and analysis is ongoing, with preliminary findings indicating some nuances to the stereotypical biases related to sex, which were prominent at the time when the Hess study was published.

Topic Area: EMOTION & SOCIAL: Other