When Ed tweeted something earlier this week about the silliest science he had ever seen coming out soon, I figured it would be right up Sci’s alley. And I’m pretty sure this was the paper he referred to, and if it wasn’t, than some truly INSANE science must have gone entirely unnoticed by the main stream media.
This one definitely got it’s share of media coverage. And it’s pretty well deserved. But of course, Sci has to cover it in her own Scicurious fashion! Alright boys, let’s get read to DANCE.
Neave et al. “Male dance moves that catch a woman’s eye”. Biology Letters, 2010.
The idea of females picking males for their sexual virility based on things like their plumage and other features certainly isn’t a new one. Darwin talked about it back in 1859. Now it is well known that some animal traits (like peacock tails, flashy stripes on fish, etc) evolve in males of a species because females are invlined to choose them. The traits that evolve are often symbols of exceptional health in the male. Human males don’t really have loads of flashy plumage. Though I guess maybe if you’re these guys you’re pretty flashy.
So the authors of this study propose that instead of looking for flashy feathers, the females of our species may look for certain aspects of movement as indicating power or skill (or maybe just good hand eye coordination). And of course, dance is a great medium for this. It involves keeping a rhythm, it’s culturally diverse, and it’s often considered a very important part of courtship.
So the authors proposed that dancing ability may be a good sign of virility, physical strength, and overall hotness in a male. They wanted to see what dance moves in particular women found attractive, and what this might signal about the overall quality of a potential mate.
Now obviously you can’t just test this by having a bunch of women watch a bunch of men on a dance floor. You don’t want things like the actual hotness factor of the guy, how he’s dress, socioeconomic signals, etc, getting in the way. So they took 19 non-professional dancing dudes, and had them dance to a simple beat (they used a single drum beat). They captured their motions and hot dance moves using video captures and came up with 3D avatars of each guy. They then had 37 women watch the videos, and asked them how good the dancers were (on a scale of one to seven). Based on the results, they were able to come up with good examples of a bad dancer, and a good dancer.
Here’s the bad dancer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vusg_76Eujo&feature=player_embedded
And here’s the good one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m9b1ZWxCuA&feature=player_embedded
They also studied the differences between the two types of dancers, and came up with a series of movements that make the difference between a good dancer and a bad one. The bad dancers were characterized with a certain stiffness, while the good dancers tended to move their heads, necks, and torsos a lot more. The “good” dancers were also those that just MOVED more in general, even aside from what movements they were specifically making. The authors suggested that the better motor movements in a good dancer could correlate with the dude’s physical condition, and thus that a good dancer could signal a healthy male.
Sci happens to think this paper is really pretty hysterical, but at the same time, I’m not sure they really took it far enough to make the conclusions that they wanted to suggest about male health and virility and good dancing. First off, let’s be honest. BOTH those videos up there show some TERRIBLE dancing. When I clicked on the video labeled “good” dancer, I really expected to see something at least of this level:
I think part of the problem was that they went with a simple drumbeat (presumably quarternotes, though they don’t state explicitly). With some good music coming at them, maybe the guys could have given themselves up to the music a little more.
Also, Sci wants to see some REAL good dancing. I think it would have been really cool to recruit people who KNEW they were bad dancers, vs people who thought they were ok, vs people who were well known to get down on the dance floor (for example, I know some people who, while not exactly professional dancers, get invited out to clubs and things for their cool moves). Give them the same clip of music to dance to, and watch them boogie.
Break those people down to avatars. Is there a difference between the fair dancers and the really good ones? How much attractiveness is involved in simply being able to hold down a beat? Which types of moves are the MOST attractive? Which aspects of movement are unattractive? What about the preponderance of groin thrusting in male dance moves? What’s up with that? IS it actually attractive? Does doing the “the sprinkler” actually DECREASE your sexual attractiveness?
And the most important question is this: they had the women break down the men into good and bad dancers, but they did NOT have them rank how ATTRACTIVE they found the dancing itself. I think with a bigger spread and more dancers of wider quality, you might be able to get something. After all, if that’s a good dancer, I mostly think he’s goofy. Do we like him because he’s a good dancer? Or because he’s goofy enough to get down to a simple drumbeat? Inquiring minds (like Sci!) want to know.
And then, Sci wants to see them go the extra mile. How DO these dancing guys end up ranking on scales of physical attractiveness? How healthy are they? How symmetrical are their features? Are they “juiced”? How do they rank when women just see a picture? Does the dancing REALLY correlate with the attractiveness of the guy?
So in conclusion, it appears that, while these weren’t exactly GOOD dancers used in this study, guys, maybe you wanna get a little more jiggy with it on the dance floor. After all, there’s more to dancing than stepping and fist pumping.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJFIca6J5BM&feature=related
Nick Neave, Kristofor McCarty, Jeanette Freynik, Nicholas Caplan, Johannes Hönekopp and, & Bernhard Fink (2010). Male dance moves that catch a woman’s eye Biology Letters
