Abstract Waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and breast size are considered important biological features defining female body attractiveness; but their neurophysiological correlates remain largely unknown. To shed light on this issue, behavioral and electroencephalographic responses were recorded while healthy heterosexual men and women completed an oddball task, which was then followed by an attractiveness judgement task. In both cases participants were presented with female body forms that combined 0.6, 0.7 or 0.8 WHRs with small or large breast sizes. Brain activity dynamics were explored using temporal principal component analysis of the event-related potentials data. Variance in the data was explained mostly by eight temporal factors for the oddball task and six for the attractiveness judgement task. Lower WHRs seemed to gather larger processing resources than higher WHRs at early perceptual-related processes during the oddball task. The less attractive WHRs and breast sizes, in contrast, seemed to boost allocation of resources later in the processing stream, which may be due to a negativity bias enhancing evaluation and decision-making processes. This inference is supported by results from the attractiveness judgement task, although the observer's gender may also play a role. Finally, LORETA analysis of the temporal factors indicate that variations in WHR may modulate activation of frontal regions, such as the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortex, that are related with reward processing and decision-making; while variations in breast size may influence activity in posterior parietal regions involved in human body perception. This paper highlights the biological importance of female body physical features in defining attractiveness, and the neurophysiological correlates that are implicated.

中文翻译：

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腰臀比和乳房大小调节女性身体轮廓的处理：脑电图研究

摘要 腰臀比 (WHR) 和乳房大小被认为是定义女性身体吸引力的重要生物学特征。但它们的神经生理学相关性在很大程度上仍然未知。为了阐明这个问题，记录了行为和脑电图反应，同时健康的异性恋男性和女性完成了一项奇怪的任务，然后是吸引力判断任务。在这两种情况下，参与者都呈现出女性体型，这些体型结合了 0.6、0.7 或 0.8 WHR 的乳房大小。使用事件相关电位数据的时间主成分分析来探索大脑活动动力学。数据的差异主要由古怪任务的八个时间因素和吸引力判断任务的六个时间因素解释。在古怪任务期间的早期感知相关过程中，较低的 WHR 似乎比较高的 WHR 收集更多的处理资源。相比之下，不太有吸引力的 WHR 和乳房大小似乎促进了后期处理流程中的资源分配，这可能是由于负面偏见增强了评估和决策过程。这一推论得到了吸引力判断任务的结果的支持，尽管观察者的性别也可能起作用。最后，LORETA 对时间因素的分析表明，WHR 的变化可能会调节与奖励处理和决策相关的额叶区域的激活，例如前扣带回和眶额叶皮层；而乳房大小的变化可能会影响参与人体感知的后顶叶区域的活动。