Gaze pattern variations among men when assessing female attractiveness.

Pilot data from eye-tracking research suggest that each male participant has his own gaze pattern, usefully regarded as an individual difference, when viewing female targets whom they are rating for attractiveness. Gaze patterns appear to be consistent within a given male participant across a variety of target models, and these individual differences may override characteristics of the model in determining fixation points, body region focus, and other eye-tracker variables. The goal of the present study was to elucidate these variations of gaze pattern by assessing the extent to which systematic "types" of gaze patterns exist among a group of male participants. Latent class analysis was used to place 60 men into groups based on their gaze pattern. A two-cluster solution produced the most interpretable analysis, and groups formed by this clustering were significantly different from each other on variables of interest. Cross validation of this solution across three additional female models resulted in some support for generalization, though exceptions were noted.