SMELLING MALE SEX HORMON-LIKE STEROIDS ALTERS THE PERCEIVED GENDER OF A FACE

Recently more and more studies test the interactions between the visual and olfactory systems. In their present paper the authors studied the effect of an odorous male gender specific sex-hormone - like steroid (5-alpha-androgenst-16-en-3-one) on face perception of healthy adult males in a two-alternative forced-choice gender discrimination task. According to their results subjects judge a particular face significantly more male when inhaling the steroid, than in the control condition. The authors' experiments illustrate that the olfactory presentation of sex-hormone - like steroids can alter the sexual discrimination of faces in a symmetric way, consequently there is a close interaction between olfactory and visual modalities, and this relationship manifests on socially important odorous substances and human faces.