Looking at beautiful men and women can help improve memory? Research reveals surprising results!

It is a natural reflex to like looking at handsome men and beautiful women . Everyone loves beauty. But for a long time, there have been many rumors that regularly looking at people with beautiful faces, or looking at idols, will bring hidden benefits to the brain?

According to "evolutionary psychology" research , viewing highly aesthetic photos of the opposite sex can temporarily improve memory and cognitive abilities for both men and women .

 Everyone loves beauty. (Illustration).

East Carolina University in the United States conducted two experiments to confirm the effects and benefits of looking at different faces on brain activity in both men and women.

First, the team recruited 58 college students who were randomly assigned to look at 10 faces of the opposite sex for 7 seconds each. Fifty percent of the subjects looked at the more attractive or beautiful faces; the rest looked at the more neutral-looking faces.

The research team further tested the subjects' memory ability (out of 3 points), the results showed that men who saw attractive faces had higher memory scores (2.81 points) than men who saw normal faces (1.50 points); the difference was not significant (2.44 points for the handsome face group and 2.79 points for the normal face group).

The second experiment involved 123 students, 10 photos of faces of the opposite sex like the previous experiment, but the experimental method was different. The subjects were divided into 3 groups.

1. Group 1: Students will look at the beautiful face first and then at the normal face.
2. Group 2 in the opposite way.
3. Group 3 looked at only normal faces from beginning to end.

The test results showed that compared with the other two groups, subjects in the first group remembered more details in the memory test, and their attention, memory, and executive functions improved, especially for female subjects.

However, the male brain also discovered something interesting. They had an improvement in short-term memory by looking at beautiful women.

" Previous literature has suggested that men experience transient cognitive impairment when talking to attractive strangers of the opposite sex, depleting their mental resources in trying to impress the opposite sex. However, this finding was not found in our study," said study author D. Baker Jr.

However, D. Baker Jr. also admitted that his new research has many limitations : "Compared to real-life interaction, just looking at pictures of the opposite sex is less stressful and can stimulate the brain differently than real-life interaction."

As for why viewing 'pretty faces' is associated with short-term increases in brain memory? Baker explains that from a human evolutionary perspective, memory is a fundamental cognition related to important survival skills. And seeing attractive faces prompts individuals to develop many 'pro-reproductive' traits , such as pursuing short-term mating goals, which improves the subject's attention, memory, and executive functions .

Showing that you have a good memory and quick thinking ability is a way to prove that you have characteristics that are beneficial for the continuation of the species, from which you will see yourself as worthy of being chosen by your other half to be friends with.

When faced with women, men's IQ will drop to its peak.

While looking at pictures of attractive faces may be good for the brain, it can be a challenge for men to talk and interact with the opposite sex.

A study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology has shown that simply interacting face-to-face with women can cause men to temporarily lose cognitive function, even affecting their behavior such as gestures, posture, eye contact, speech, etc.

The Dutch research team recruited 71 students with an average age of 21. The subjects were asked to complete tasks related to cognitive brain function under the gaze of the opposite sex via a remote video camera.

The results showed that men who were monitored by women for a long time had lower task completion and poorer work performance. In contrast, no such results were obtained for women.

Study author Sanne Nauts explains that based on evolutionary biology, males are always looking for potential mating opportunities with females, regardless of whether the host is currently in a conscious or unconscious state.

Therefore, men are more likely to view relatively neutral situations from a sexual perspective than women, such as:

"She's looking at me, I have to behave well. If I perform poorly, my sexual value will decrease."

"We have to have a 'cool head' in front of women, not joke like stupid men, be very manly and have polite behavior in front of her".

The results could have a direct impact on the social climate that demands men today to be more masculine, assertive, and unemotional, Nauts says, which not only reduces men's cognitive functioning but also puts a lot of pressure on them to express their emotions and feelings.