We examined whether visual processing mechanisms of the body of conspecifics are different in women and men and whether these rely on westernised socio-cultural ideals and body image concerns. Twenty-four women and 24 men performed a visual discrimination task of upright or inverted images of female or male bodies and faces (Experiment 1) and objects (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, both groups of women and men showed comparable abilities in the discrimination of upright and inverted bodies and faces. However, the gender of the human stimuli yielded different effects on participants’ performance, so that female faces, and male bodies appeared to be processed less configurally than female bodies and male faces, respectively. Interestingly, the reduction of configural processing for male bodies was significantly predicted by participants’ Body Mass Index (BMI) and their level of internalization of muscularity. Our findings suggest that configural visual processing of bodies and faces in women and men may be linked to a selective attention to detail needed for discriminating salient physical (perhaps sexual) cues of conspecifics. Importantly, BMI and muscularity internalization of beauty ideals may also play a crucial role in this mechanism.

我们研究了女性和男性同种动物身体的视觉处理机制是否不同，以及这些机制是否依赖于西方化的社会文化理想和身体形象问题。24 名女性和 24 名男性对女性或男性身体和面部（实验 1）和物体（实验 2）的直立或倒置图像进行了视觉辨别任务。在实验 1 中，两组女性和男性在辨别直立和倒立的身体和面部方面表现出相当的能力。然而，人类刺激的性别对参与者的表现产生了不同的影响，因此女性面孔和男性身体似乎分别比女性身体和男性面孔在配置上的处理更少。有趣的是，参与者的体重指数 (BMI) 和他们的肌肉内化水平显着预测了男性身体结构加工的减少。我们的研究结果表明，女性和男性身体和面部的配置视觉处理可能与选择性注意区分同种的显着身体（可能是性）线索所需的细节有关。重要的是，BMI 和美丽理想的肌肉内化也可能在这一机制中发挥关键作用。