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Media Relations

The untrained eye

Scientist Live
April 1, 2008

New research from Indiana University and Yale suggests that college-age men confuse friendly non-verbal cues with cues for sexual interest because the men have a less discerning eye than women -- but their female peers aren't far behind.

In the study, appearing in the April issue of the journal Psychological Science, men who viewed images of friendly women misidentified 12 percent of the images as sexually interested. Women mistook 8.7 percent of the friendly images for sexual interest.

Both men and women were even more likely to do the opposite -- when viewing images of sexually interested women, men mistakenly called 37.8 percent of the images "friendly." Women mistook 31.9 percent of the sexual interest cues for friendliness.

Read the entire article here: http://www.scientistlive.com/lab/?/Medical/2008/04/01/20104/The_untrained_eye/

Learn more about IU here: http://www.indiana.edu

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