Love at first sight - or even quicker!

A new study has revealed that men take only milliseconds to decide on their potential partners.

Couple, Man and Woman, Marie Claire News
Couple, Man and Woman, Marie Claire News
(Image credit: Rex Features)

A new study has revealed that men take only milliseconds to decide on their potential partners.

How long does it take you to be attracted to someone? Days, months, even years in some cases? Well for men it takes just a fraction of a second to work out whether a woman is attractive enough to mate with, according to the latest study.

Whilst women look to personality factors to judge whether a man will a good potential partner, men are more interested in physical factors which can be instantly assessed.

However according to the researchers, they are not simply being shallow, as the male survival instinct encourages them to seek out signs of good female fertility, including a pretty face and healthy figure.

The study tested 20 men and 20 women who were shown images of the opposite sex whilst carrying out a task. The findings showed that women were able to stick to the task, whilst men were distracted by the images.

‘Men definitely have the most wandering eye,' said Professor Mark van Vugt, of the University of Amsterdam, where the study was conducted.

‘We found they do make snap judgements about women, much earlier than was previously thought.

‘But it's because they have evolved to pay attention to cues of fertility and one of those is facial beauty. It's not that men are shallow.'

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