I’m unconvinced that the misattribution of arousal is not a feature.
Firstly, a woman that calmly stays on a scary bridge, may really be more worth having one-night-stand with, in evolutionary terms (taking care of children w/o the man, or at very least, combining your genes with dissimilar person). Secondarily when in danger it is a feature to take risks trying to reproduce. While it may well be that we do this by misattributing the arousal, which seems like an error, the end result may work, and evolution only cares about end result.
The arousal is here to modify your behaviour and it may be effective to modify behaviour in similar ways regardless of the source of the arousal.
Also, I’m unconvinced that in the experimental set up this even works by thinking—why were i so aroused—and then deciding, it must be woman, and calling her. Could be simply that in the aroused state (when the hormones are flowing through the blood) the sexual attraction is increased (the hormones latch onto receptor sites and increase the signal level for sexual attraction). That’s clearly a simpler explanation. One should do this with rats and see. The rats probably do not think—“why the hell was i aroused, was it the female rat? she must be attractive, better give a call”.
I’m unconvinced that the misattribution of arousal is not a feature.
Firstly, a woman that calmly stays on a scary bridge, may really be more worth having one-night-stand with, in evolutionary terms (taking care of children w/o the man, or at very least, combining your genes with dissimilar person). Secondarily when in danger it is a feature to take risks trying to reproduce. While it may well be that we do this by misattributing the arousal, which seems like an error, the end result may work, and evolution only cares about end result.
The arousal is here to modify your behaviour and it may be effective to modify behaviour in similar ways regardless of the source of the arousal.
Also, I’m unconvinced that in the experimental set up this even works by thinking—why were i so aroused—and then deciding, it must be woman, and calling her. Could be simply that in the aroused state (when the hormones are flowing through the blood) the sexual attraction is increased (the hormones latch onto receptor sites and increase the signal level for sexual attraction). That’s clearly a simpler explanation. One should do this with rats and see. The rats probably do not think—“why the hell was i aroused, was it the female rat? she must be attractive, better give a call”.