Researchers at the University of Tampere and the Aalto University, Finland, have discovered that the human brain processes nude human bodies differently than it processes clothed human bodies. The researchers also found that a male’s brain reacts much more quickly to the nude female form, while the female’s brain reacts equally to the nude form of either gender. How’d the researchers go about conducting this study? They showed the participants nude pics, of course. There was also science involved.

Participants of the study were shown pictures of models that wore either normal clothing, swimsuits, or nothing at all. While the participants were ogling, the researchers used brain imaging to record the participants’ electrical brain activity, which allowed the researchers to get a better look at the early stages of the brain’s visual processing.

All joking aside, the results showed that the brain processed the nude form in less than 0.2 seconds, more efficiently than it processed the non-nude form. The results showed that, regardless of full nudity, the less clothing the models were wearing in the pictures, the more quickly the brain processed the information. The researchers also found that the male’s brain processed the nude female form more quickly than it processed the nude male form, but the female brain processed both nude forms equally.

The results suggest that the brain boosts the processing of sexually arousing cues, something none of us ever would have guessed. One would assume the brain reacts this way to aid the reproduction process, in that if we weren’t very interested in the nude form, it’d be somewhat more difficult to reproduce through jeans.

So, now that science has told you that your brain processes nude body parts more quickly than the clothed ones, the next time you get in trouble for checking out that hot guy or gal walking down the street in a tank top, you can just tell your significant other that it was science’s fault.

(via EurekAlert)

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