Two studies considered the interplay between user-perceived usability (i.e., pragmatic attributes), hedonic attributes (e.g., stimulation, identification), goodness (i.e., satisfaction), and beauty of 4 different MP3-player skins. As long as beauty and goodness stress the subjective valuation of a product, both were related to each other. However, the nature of goodness and beauty was found to ...

Previous studies have demonstrated variable influences of sexual hormonal states on female brain activation and the necessity to control for these in neuroimaging studies. However, systematic investigations of these influences, particularly those of hormonal contraceptives as compared to the physiological menstrual cycle are scarce. In the present study, we investigated the hormonal modulation ...

Considerable evidence has accumulated from studies in vivo and with tissue slices indicating that erotic acid (4-carboxyuracil), or a closely related compound, is a precursor of the pyrimidines in nucleic acid (l-6). In order to study the pathway of erotic acid metabolism at the enzymatic level, a source material capable of metabolizing large amounts of erotic acid was sought. Such a system was...

A definite connection of erotic acid with the biosynthesis of nucleic acid pyrimidines is provided by the finding that erotic acid (7) as well as thymine (8,9) can supplement or replace the folic acid required by certain microorganisms. As suggested by Chattaway (7)) it would appear that folic acid has a function in the biosynthesis of pyrimidines. Furthermore, this function is probably concern...

Although the combination of alcohol and sex is frequently observed in human social interaction, many questions concerning alcohol’s effects on the processing of sexual stimuli and brain functionality remain unanswered. Erotic films eliciting sexual arousal in humans and affect electroencephalographic (EEG) activity. This study examines the effects of alcohol on cortical EEG activity in young me...

Based on studies of heterosexual male fetishists, transvestites, and transsexuals, Blanchard (1991) proposed the existence of a hitherto unrecognized paraphilic dimension, erotic target location errors (ETLEs), involving the erroneous location of erotic targets in the environment. ETLEs can involve preferential attention to a peripheral or inessential part of an erotic target, manifesting as fe...

Everything that is mass-produced is designed. Every designed object has its own evident quality of beauty. But how can we help students understand the nature and form of beauty as something that is an integral part of the design process. In this paper we explore the notion of beauty as it is represented through aesthetics. Students’ experience of making designed objects, their engagement with t...

Exotic Becomes Erotic: Explaining the Enigma of Sexual Orientation Daryl J. Bem Cornell University In this address, I outline my “Exotic-Becomes-Erotic" theory of sexual orientation (Bem, 1996) , which provides the same basic account for both opposite-sex and same-sex erotic desire—and for both men and women. It proposes that biological variables do not code for sexual orientation per se but fo...

BACKGROUND Although pedophilia is of high public concern, little is known about underlying neural mechanisms. Although pedophilic patients are sexually attracted to prepubescent children, they show no sexual interest toward adults. This study aimed to investigate the neural correlates of deficits of sexual and emotional arousal in pedophiles. METHODS Thirteen pedophilic patients and 14 health...