Talking to Men Makes Woman Glow

A mere social interaction with a man can bring a glow to a woman's face, a new study has found that may lead to the development of new thermal imaging technology to monitor levels of stress and emotions.

Researchers at the University of St Andrews found that even non-sexual contact with men caused a noticeable rise in the temperature of a woman's face.


The team, which used thermal imaging to detect changes in heterosexual women during their meetings with other people, found that even without noticing, a woman's face would heat up in the company of the opposite sex.

The findings, published in Biology Letters, could be used in the development of thermal imaging to monitor levels of stress and emotion in future, for example in lie detection tests, the researchers said.

Amanda Hahn, who led the study, said researchers measured skin temperature on a woman's hand, arm, face and chest when they interacted with men.

They found the most dramatic increase occurred in a woman's face, where temperatures rose by an entire degree in some cases," she said.


"This thermal change was in response to simple social interaction, without any experimental change to emotion or arousal. Indeed our participants did not report feeling embarrassment or discomfort during the interaction," she was quoted as saying by the BBC.

The study shows that gender alone influenced the reaction of women, who showed very little response to interaction with other women, she added.

"We are only just beginning to understand the potential uses of thermal imaging in medicine and it can be very useful in areas of national security, where changes in skin temperature can be gauged as part of lie detection tests," added Prof David Perrett, who was also part of the research.

The next goal, the team said, is to work out whether or not these physiological changes are detected by others and whether they affect social interactions.