"A Jolt for the Leering Gaze That Sizes Up Women?"... British Researchers' Clever Experiment

University of Exeter Conducts Experiment with 76 University Students
10 Minutes of Brain Stimulation Alters Recognition of Images of Women

A study has found that applying a weak electrical current to the brain reduces visual perception bias associated with viewing women as sexual objects.

On October 26 local time, the University of Exeter in the UK said in a paper published in the international journal Social Neuroscience that weak electrical stimulation of the brain can temporarily reduce visual perception bias associated with the sexual objectification of women.

Study participants. University of Exeter, UK.

The researchers focused on a phenomenon in which people have difficulty recognizing faces or bodies when photographs are turned upside down. By contrast, turning photographs of objects upside down makes relatively little difference to people’s ability to recognize them. Previous studies found that this difference was smaller when people viewed sexualized images of women. The researchers thought this could be related to a tendency to perceive women’s bodies as objects.

Professor Ciro Civile of the University of Exeter, who led the study, explained: “Sexual objectification means treating a person as a body to be looked at or used, rather than as a whole person. It is an act that dehumanizes people, and women are the ones who experience it most often.”

Women are commonly portrayed as sexual objects in movies, television, social media (SNS) and advertising. Such sexual objectification is known to be associated not only with attitudes that condone sexual harassment, but also with body-image shame, anxiety, eating disorders and depression.

10 Minutes of Electrical Stimulation to the Brain Improves Recognition of Images of Women

The researchers showed 76 university students (54 women and 22 men) front-facing and upside-down photographs of male and female models wearing underwear and asked them to remember the images. They then presented the participants with a mix of other photographs and asked them to identify the models they had seen earlier.

During the experiment, half of the participants received 10 minutes of weak electrical current to the scalp using a technique called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). The other half received sham stimulation, with current applied for only 30 seconds. No adverse effects were reported during the experiment.

The results showed that, in the sham-stimulation group, the difference in recognition ability between upright and upside-down images was smaller for photographs of women than for those of men. By contrast, the group that received actual electrical stimulation showed improved recognition of upright photographs of women. As a result, the difference in the recognition of photographs of men and women decreased to a statistically insignificant level.

However, because the researchers measured recognition ability during or immediately after electrical stimulation, they were unable to determine how long the effect lasted.

Researchers: “Not a Treatment for Sexism”

Professor Civile emphasized: “This study provides early evidence that simply applying weak stimulation to the brain can temporarily change how sexualized images of women are processed.” He added: “We did not measure the participants’ attitudes or behavior, and brain stimulation is not a treatment for sexism.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.