Meet the scientists!

I specialise in human mate choice, which is how people find partners and what they find attractive in each other. This is really important for all sexually reproducing species, because if you cannot find a partner, you cannot reproduce. I use computer graphics software to digitally manipulate faces, for example to make them older or younger, or masculine or feminine, and more or less attractive. Here is an example of an average face created by blending together several men’s faces.

The one on the left has then been masculinised and the one on the right feminised by changing the shape towards the average male or female shape. And here I have done the same thing to my face:

Whenever we make a judgment about whether someone is attractive, we are unconsciously assessing whether they would make a suitable mate to share our genes with. Animals make the same sort of decisions, so evolution helps us to understand the behaviour of all different species.

In the morning, I am woken up by my little boy, Benjamin, demanding breakfast and a cuddle (in that order). At work, my time, is split between teaching and research. So if I have a lecture one day, I might prepare for it for an hour before, print out handouts and so on, then give the lecture. This could be in front of 200 students, which is quite daunting, and goes on for 2 hours. After that, I need a big cup of tea to recover. Then I might spend the rest of the day doing research. I might photograph some people’s faces. I would then upload these pictures into special software which I use to change the shape of their face, for example turning a man’s face gradually into a woman’s across a series of steps. Then I would show these pictures to other students who would rate how attractive they find each picture.

Other activities include reading the latest research from other scientists, helping students run their own experiments, writing up my results for publication, presenting my work at conferences. Hopefully not all on the same day though.

The psychology department in Portsmouth is doing some research on some monkeys in Marwell zoo in hampshire. We are going to introduce touch-screen computers to them and teach them how to do experiments. This will help us work out how their minds work and what sort of things they understand. The research will be fully on display to the public (they can see the monkeys using the computers), so I would use to money to make some signs explaining what is going on and what we are learning about these animals.