The 'Look' of Love: It's All in the Eyes

Despite what soul singer Better Everett said, it may not be "in his kiss." A recent study published in the journal Psychological Science shows that, more likely, feelings of sincerity, friendship and love, will be in his eyes.

"Although little is currently known about the science of love at first sight or how people fall in love, these patterns of response provide the first clues regarding how automatic attentional processes, such as eye gaze, may differentiate feelings of love from feelings of desire toward strangers," said lead study author Stephanie Cacioppo, director of the UChicago High-Performance Electrical NeuroImaging Laboratory, in a news release. Cacioppo co-authored the report, now published online in the journal Psychological Science, with colleagues from UChicago's Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, and the University of Geneva.

To get a better "look" at just how different networks of the brain are activated depending on feelings of love or sexual desire, researchers performed two experiments that tested visual patterns for emotional and cognitive states; this helped differentiate between feelings of romance and lust.

For the study, male and female students from the University of Geneva viewed a series of black-and-white photographs of strangers. In the first part of the study, participants were asked to view the photos of young, adult heterosexual couples who were looking at or interacting with each other. The second part of the study had participants view photographs of attractive individuals of the opposite sex who were looking directly at the camera/viewer.

Findings revealed that those who had feelings of romantic love were more likely to fixate on the face, while those who felt greater feelings of sexual desire moved from the face to the rest of the body. This effect was found in both male and female participants.

"By identifying eye patterns that are specific to love-related stimuli, the study may contribute to the development of a biomarker that differentiates feelings of romantic love versus sexual desire," concluded co-author John Cacioppo, the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor and director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience. "An eye-tracking paradigm may eventually offer a new avenue of diagnosis in clinicians' daily practice or for routine clinical exams in psychiatry and/or couple therapy."