When people view sexualised images of women, they tend to remember them less well than sexualised images of men; a quirk of memory that psychologists link to objectification. But in our new study, my colleagues and I found an unlikely “fix” – applying a mild electrical current to the forehead.

Objectification means seeing someone as a body, or a set of body parts, rather than as a whole person. Our results, published in Social Neuroscience, suggest this bias in perception is not hard-wired and can be changed – at least for a while.

Psychologists measure it with an upside-down test. People are much better at recognising faces and bodies the right way up – typically about 80% right, against 55% upside down – because we take in how all the parts fit together. With objects, such as houses, turning them over matters far less, because we recognise them by their parts.

A 2012 study used this test on sexualised images. Volunteers briefly saw a photo, then had to pick it out from a pair: the photo itself and its mirror image. Men and women alike did far better with men in underwear when the photos were upright, but did about as well with women in similar poses either way – the pattern expected for objects.

The finding has been debated, and some attempts to repeat it have failed. But a 2022 analysis pooling results from........

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