Overview
- Researchers at the University of Exeter ran a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind experiment that asked 76 student volunteers to memorise sexualised images of men and women shown upright and upside down.
- Half the participants received ten minutes of mild electrical stimulation to the scalp while the other half received a 30-second placebo; neither participants nor experimenters knew who was in which group.
- Active stimulation improved recognition of upright sexualised images of women and eliminated the gap in processing between images of women and men that was present in the placebo group.
- Authors and reporters stressed limits: the effect was measured on a lab task, tested in a modest student sample, was temporary, and the study did not assess changes in sexist attitudes, harassment or real-world behaviour.
- The finding highlights a perceptual route to sexual objectification and opens new research paths on neural mechanisms, safety, durability and whether short-term changes in perception can translate into social or mental-health outcomes.