title: Urinary oxytocin positively correlates with performance in facial visual search in unmarried males, without specific reaction to infant face.
abstract: The neuropeptide oxytocin plays a central role in prosocial and parental behavior in non-human mammals as well as humans. It has been suggested that oxytocin may affect visual processing of infant faces and emotional reaction to infants. Healthy male volunteers (N = 13) were tested for their ability to detect infant or adult faces among adult or infant faces (facial visual search task). Urine samples were collected from all participants before the study to measure the concentration of oxytocin. Urinary oxytocin positively correlated with performance in the facial visual search task. However, task performance and its correlation with oxytocin concentration did not differ between infant faces and adult faces. Our data suggests that endogenous oxytocin is related to facial visual cognition, but does not promote infant-specific responses in unmarried men who are not fathers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive and Behavioral Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Atsuko
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Saito
authors.affiliation: Department of General Systems Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hamada
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Science and Biotechnology, Azabu University Kanagawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Takefumi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kikusui
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Science and Biotechnology, Azabu University Kanagawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Kazutaka
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mogi
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Science and Biotechnology, Azabu University Kanagawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Miho
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nagasawa
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Science and Biotechnology, Azabu University Kanagawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Shohei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mitsui
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui Fukui, Japan.
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Higuchi
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive and Behavioral Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Toshikazu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hasegawa
authors.affiliation: Department of General Systems Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo Tokyo, Japan ; JST, CREST Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Kazuo
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hiraki
keywords: cognitive task; infant; oxytocin; social cognition; visual search