No one knows when the story of love began in the history of mankind, though from a religious point of view it started with Adam and Eve and the Forbidden Fruit. Scientifically speaking, love probably made its appearance with H. neanderthalensis between 350 and 30 thousand years ago. Neanderthal graves have yielded the pollen of brightly coloured flowers brought from different regions, and these...

INTRODUCTION Brain imaging is becoming a powerful tool in the study of human cerebral functions related to close personal relationships. Outside of subcortical structures traditionally thought to be involved in reward-related systems, a wide range of neuroimaging studies in relationship science indicate a prominent role for different cortical networks and cognitive factors. Thus, the field need...

OBJECTIVE Experiencing romantic love is an important part of individual development. Here, we investigated stability and change in romantic love and psychological correlates, including mood states, anxiety, and sleep, among Iranian adolescents over a period of 8 months. METHOD Two hundred and one adolescents who had taken part in a previous study were contacted; 157 responded. Participants co...

A widely held belief exists that women are more romantic and tend to fall in love faster than men. Responses from 172 college students indicated that although both men and women believe that women will fall in love and say "I love you" first in a relationship, men reported falling in love earlier and expressing it earlier than women reported. Analyses also showed no sex differences in attitudin...

Romantic love is a "universal... or near universal" human phenomenon. Recently, love, romantic love, also became a theme of interest for scientists. The current research is seeking an explanation to clarify the brain mechanisms that are responsible for love behavior and feelings. Until recently, the study of love has been mainly the field of psychology. The biology of love originates in the pri...

This paper outlines two models for framing affection games as a contribution to the evolution of courtship rituals or as a matriculation through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It then frames the design of these games through two distinct lenses. The first is a game verb based framing, focusing on the affectionate actions designed to meet game goals. The second is an interaction dynamic framing, w...

Fan fiction writers use an existing fictional universe to develop scenarios and characters in creative ways within the logic of the original universe. In this chapter, I examine the representations of the erotics of pain in two fanproduced, so-called femslash texts describing romantic and sexual relationships between the two vampire slayers Buffy and Faith from Joss Whedon’s TV series Buffy the...