Exam 2 Flashcards
(20 cards)
The Science of Kissing
Beyond evolutionary biology and anthropology, physiological studies over the past few decades are answering all sorts of interesting questions, like:
What do we do instinctively when we kiss?
What happens to our bodies when we kiss?
How can we apply this information about kissing to do it better?
What happens when two people lean in for a kiss?
You turn your head.
Gunturkun (2003) studied people ages 13-70 kissing in public places in Germany, Turkey, and the U.S.
Found that two-thirds turn heads to the right
What do we do when we kiss?
Preference for right head-tilt is not correlated with being right or left-handed
Two prevailing beliefs as to where this head-tilt comes from:
In Utero : May develop as babies develop habits in the womb, including placing their head to one side
Breastfeeding :
Up to 80% of mothers breast feed cradling their babies to the left (regardless of left or right-handed)
To nurse, babies have to turn their heads to the Right
May associate this head turn with affection early in life.
But maybe there’s an partner interaction effect?
Possible that the initiator of a kiss subtly informs the other person what to do through nonverbal cues
A slight head tilt to right or left instantly provides visual, tactile, and other sensory signals about what’s happening and what they should do.
Follow-up study used dolls to eliminate the effect of social cues on head tilt
Found the same Right -tilt preference, regardless
Assuming it’s a romantic/passionate kiss, when your lips make contact:
Your breathing can become irregular and deepen
Your pupils dilate
Your pulse quickens
Your blood vessels dilate, providing more oxygen to your brain
Your cheeks flush
Plus, depending on the kiss
you can sample your partner’s taste
Assuming it’s a romantic/passionate kiss, when your lips make contact:
Five of your 12 cranial nerves get triggered These are the nerves that emerge directly from your brain stem, intricately spreading throughout your face Responsible for all sorts of complex activities, helping you to hear, see, smell, taste, touch, and create facial expression
This means all five of your senses are busy transmitting messages to your brain
All the messages transmitted by your nerves converge in the somatosensory cortex
The part of your brain that processes feelings of touch, temperature, pain, and more
Here they are interpreted, resulting
in “thoughts,” such as:
“Did he just have onions?”
“Where is that hand wandering?”
The Lips!
Packed with nerve endings
Extremely sensitive to every kind of stimuli, including pressure, warmth, cold, moisture, etc.
There is disproportionate neural space associated with our lipscompared with the rest of our body
Stimulation of the lips triggers more of your brain than does stuff going on below the belt!
This makes our lips our most exposed erogenous zones!
Sensory Homunculus
To help illustrate this, take a look at the sculpture to the right
It was created to reflect the relationship between each body part and the proportion of brain tissue dedicated to processing sensory information that comes from it
No female version of this, but it would be similar
Your brain on a kiss:
Science has really only scratched the surface of the brain’s very interactive role in the act of kissing
The brain is made up of over 100 billion nerve cells
Connected at points call
Synapases , which transmit signals to other parts of the body
Your brain on a kiss
These neurons carry a dramatic variety of messages at dazzling speeds via Neurotransmitters
Neurotransmitters are the chemical messengers of the brain and nervous system
They jump across the synapsis from one nerve to another
Just to be clear, when it comes to these Neurotransmitters
There are more than 60 distinct neurotransmitters giving marching orders, with legions of them floating around in your body at any given time
It’s not as if any single one is a magic bullet, commanding all of your behaviors
Vincent (2006) suggested that each neurotransmitter acts like “a single voice in a choir”
The Theory of Mirror Neurons
Excitable cells that fire in response to another person’s experience
Seeing someone get pricked by a pin triggers the part of our brain that would go off if we, ourselves were pricked by a pin
It’s believed that these cells also play a role in helping us interpret and anticipate other people’s actions
Therefore, these mirror neurons may inform us about how to respond to being kissed
Ricciardi et al (2009) studied what happens when macaques watch a human make kissing gestures with their mouth
One third of a macaque’s motor cells associated with lip movements fire up just from seeing these gestures
Your brain on a kiss:
A sensual kiss sends a blast of signals through your cranial nerves to the parts of your brain called the Limbic System.
Parts of the brain associated with feelings of love, passion, and lust
When the more neurotransmitters
gets activated this way, it starts telling your body to produce:
More
“Good times” hormones
Dopamine
Oxytocin
Serotonin
Adrenaline
Endorphins (via pituitary gland & hypothalamus)
The endorphin rush can make you feel “high”
Your brain on Dopamine
When it comes to kissing, dopamine is one of the most important neurotransmitters
Dopamine spikes during a passionate kiss
It’s associated with the expectation of a pleasure-based reward
This spike triggers a rush of elation and craving
Can also result in obsessive thoughts that a lot of folks associate with new romance
Fortunately, Dopamine does much more than lead to erratic behavior
Helps us to: seek new ones
Recognize interesting situations
Remember pleasurable experiences
Unfortunately, dopamine may also be behind the addictive nature of extramarital affairs
Our biology places a limit on how long the “high” from dopamine can last
This neurotransmitter decreases as we become more accustomed to a romantic partner, which is a part of why sexual desire wanes with the same person over time
As with many drugs, people can become dependent on that high, even when they feel bad about cheating on a spouse
