sunday music: women's menstrual cycle phase impacts sexual preference for composers of more complex music

 http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-04-women-menstrual-phase-impacts-sexual.html

Study shows women's menstrual cycle phase impacts sexual preference for composers of more complex music

by Bob Yirka 

Striking a chord with lovers? During the most fertile phase of their menstrual cycle, women prefer sexual mates who are able to produce more complex music. ('Liszt at the piano' by Josef Danhauser, 1805-1845)

(Medical Xpress)—An intriguing study conducted by Benjamin Charlton, of the University of Sussex, has resulted in findings that suggest women prefer male composers that produce complex pieces of music when at the most fertile point in their menstrual cycle. In his paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Charlton describes his study that involved subjecting volunteer women to snippets of music and querying them regarding their desire to have a short or long term (sexual) relationship with the composer, based solely on the music they'd created.

 

 

People like music, of that there is no doubt. Some like to create it, others to play and many others to listen to others perform. Why this is has baffled scientists for generations—it apparently has no real purpose, from a scientific standpoint. Some, such as Charles Darwin, have insisted that it's all a mating ritual, though to date, no one has been able to prove it. In his study, Charlton appears to come close.

In his experiment, Charlton enlisted the assistance of 1,465 healthy young women(average age 27.9) none of whom were pregnant, on the pill or nursing. Each was asked to participate in one of two experiments. In the first, some of the women were asked to listen to different pieces of recorded piano music and then to report how complex the composition was. Next, a different group of women was asked to listen (more at the link above)

 

...and link -

When music makes male faces more attractive (for the results, not interpretation): https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-09-music-male.html

comment on the later study - reducing causality into narrative... may lead in a questionable direction. ie: behaviors may be at least partially considered as ... emergent genetic expression. Fitness or condition... in or through more contexts...