Not within spitting distance: Salivary immunoassays of estradiol have subpar validity for predicting cycle phase.

Salivary steroid immunoassays are widely used in psychoneuroendocrinological studies of menstrual cycle phase, puberty, and menopause. Though manufacturers advertise their assays as suitable, they have not been rigorously validated for these purposes. We collated data from eight menstrual cycle studies across > 1200 female participants and > 9500 time points.

Smelling human sex hormone-like compounds affects face gender judgment of men.

Although strong cross-sensory interactions between visual, tactile and auditory modalities have already been shown, we know little about how chemosensory information affects processing in other sensory modalities. We studied whether smelling gender-specific odorous sex hormone-like steroids: 5-alpha-androgenst-16-en-3-one (androgen) or oestra-1, 3, 5 (10), 16-tetraen-3-ol (estrogen) can bias face gender discrimination. We found that, as a result of inhalation of androgen, men perceive faces to be more masculine as compared to when they are exposed to estrogen.

Concordant preferences for opposite-sex signals? Human pheromones and facial characteristics.

We have investigated whether preferences for masculine and feminine characteristics are correlated across two modalities, olfaction and vision. In study 1, subjects rated the pleasantness of putative male (4,16-androstadien-3-one; 5alpha-androst-16-en-3-one) and female (1,3,5 (10),16-estratetraen-3-ol) pheromones, and chose the most attractive face shape from a masculine-feminine continuum for a long- and a short-term relationship. Study 2 replicated study 1 and further explored the effects of relationship context on pheromone ratings.

Alcohol consumption increases attractiveness ratings of opposite-sex faces: a possible third route to risky sex.

Aims: To measure the effect of moderate alcohol consumption on males' and females' attractiveness ratings of unfamiliar male and female faces.

Participants: Eighty undergraduate volunteers were used in each of three experiments.

Design: Participants' ratings on a 1-7 scale was the dependent variable.

A flicker paradigm for inducing change blindness reveals alcohol and cannabis information processing biases in social users.

Aim: To apply a new paradigm using transient changes to visual scenes to explore information processing biases relating to "social" levels of alcohol and cannabis use.

Participants: Male and female student volunteers (n = 200) not self-reporting substance-related problems.

Setting: Quiet testing areas throughout the university campus.

Social users of alcohol and cannabis who detect substance-related changes in a change blindness paradigm report higher levels of use than those detecting substance-neutral changes.

Rationale: Understanding the cognitions underpinning substance use has stalled using the Stroop paradigm.

Objective: To employ a novel version of the flicker paradigm for induced change blindness to independently compare information processing biases in social users of alcohol and cannabis.

Method: Alcohol and cannabis experiments were independently run.