STUDY: HEARTS BEAT, PALMS SWEAT IN SYNC WHEN TWO ARE ATTRACTED

A small team of researchers from Leiden University in the Netherlands and the University of Birmingham in the UK has found that when two people are attracted to one another, their heart rates tend to synchronize and their palms sweat together. In their paper published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, the group describes experiments they conducted with volunteers in “dating cabins” – little enclosed sheds with a table and two chairs inside. In the middle of the table was a screen so participants couldn’t see one another. The participants were wired with hardware for measuring eye movement, heart rate and palm sweating. They set up the cabins at public events such as concerts and invited young single people to come in. They removed the partition for three seconds, after which they were asked to rate their attraction to the other person. Then they let the two people talk to each other for two minutes. Volunteers were once again asked to rate their attraction. The researchers found that volunteers who were truly attracted to one another began to experience heart rate synchronization, both rising and falling. They also found some degree of synchronization in the amount of palm sweating.
* Darling, I’ve loved you ever since our palms sweated in synchronization.
* I don’t know if I could be attracted to someone based on their palm sweat.
* Hooking a total stranger after two minutes of talking? I WISH I was that smooth.
* Come on, researchers. You’re at a concert. Every part of you is sweating.
* Some of the participants started dating, but whenever they have sex they have to put all that heartbeat and palm sweat measuring hardware back on.