Why do we fall in love? And how long is actually “forever”? In a new documentary series, zdf neo and the host Janin Ullmann have been looking for scientific answers.

In part 1 of the documentary, Michael Schiessl and our colleagues helped zdf neo to set up an experiment in our lab for two of the couples in the project. The question we wanted to answer was: Which optical stimuli unconsciously control our choice of partner? While participants were looking at different photos, we measured their activation levels with skin conductance. In addition, we measured visual perception with eye-tracking and analyzed the emotions of the participants.

You can watch the full documentary here and maybe find the recipe for a lifelong relationship (eye square’s experiment at timestamp 18:30):