title: Self-relevant beauty evaluation: Evidence from an event-related potentials study.
abstract: This study examines the electrophysiological correlates of beauty evaluation when participants performed the self-reference task. About 13 (7 men, 6 women) undergraduates participated in the experiment using event-related potentials. Results showed that the response to self-relevant information was faster compared to other-relevant information and no significant differences for self-relevant relative to mother-relevant information were observed. Both physical and interior beauty words for self-relevant information showed an enhanced late positive component as compared to other-relevant information. Physical beauty for self-relevant information yielded a larger late positive component in contrast to mother-relevant information but not for interior beauty. This study indicates that beauty is specific to the person who judges it though an individual and one's mother may hold similar views of interior beauty.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Adolescent CyberPsychology and Behavior (Ministry of Education) and School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Fanchang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Kong
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Cuiying
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Zongkui
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins; D001504:Beauty; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012649:Self Concept; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; C523534:TIC protein, Arabidopsis
keywords: Physical beauty; event-related potentials; interior beauty; late positive component; self-reference task