Will you fall in love with someone the first time you meet them? We have all seen two strangers meet and feel the moment of moments of romantic—in fact, “Love at First Sight” has been the mainstay of literature for thousands of years, and people in real life often claim to have e

Will you fall in love with someone the first time you meet them?

We have all seen two strangers meet and feel the moment of moments of romantic moments in movies – in fact, “love at first sight” has been the mainstay of literature for thousands of years, and people in real life often claim to have experienced similar sparks.

But is this feeling really love? According to the authors of a new study, not exactly.

In this study, researchers investigated whether people feel love at first sight (LAFS) or if they retroactively believe they feel this way once they have become attached to their romantic partners. Scientists also question whether the “love” people call it when they first meet really represents the complex emotions that make up love—or simply a powerful physical attraction.

Previous research has shown that love activates certain brain regions and the location of activity may vary depending on the type of love a person feels, such as emotional, maternal or passionate love. Strong, passionate love activates the same network in the brain as addiction, while longer-term love triggers responses in brain areas associated with attachment and reward.

Researchers have also previously reported that up to one-third of people in Western countries have claimed to have experienced LAFS. The feeling is related to more passion and stronger connections in the relationship, scientists write in the new study.

But the study authors explained that there is little evidence to see if LAFS occurs when people think it happens—the moment they first meet—or that they just remember the way it happens through the lens of their current romantic feeling.

Scientists collected data on approximately 500 encounters between nearly 400 participants, mostly heterosexual Dutch and German students in their 20s. The researchers collected information about meeting with potential romantic partners from their subjects through three phases of data collection—online surveys, laboratory studies and three dates that lasted up to 90 minutes. They noticed whether participants said they felt similar to LAFS when they first met, and that they ranked the physical attraction of the people who inspired these feelings.

To define what “love” is, subjects submitted self-analysis of several key components: “emotion” (body attraction), “intimacy,” “passion,” and “commitment.” During the test period, 32 different people reported that they had experienced LAFS in total—and that observation is not usually accompanied by high ratings for love components such as intimacy and commitment.

However, the researchers found that the report on LAFS does correspond to a potential partner’s higher score in terms of physical attractiveness. The study authors reported that about 60% of the study participants were women, but men were more likely to feel LAFS “on the spot.” According to the study, their experience of LAFS was not rewarded in each case, suggesting that mutual, transient LAFS is “probably often rare.”

The authors confirm that, in fact, LAFS is simply the "strong initial attraction" that people think of love, both at the moment they feel it or in retrospect. Although some research subjects who have already dated someone reported falling in love at first glance, it is difficult to determine whether this happened in the way they remembered. To answer this question, further investigation of romantic relationships is required to see how those initial, intense momentary feelings of love come into play over time, scientists wrote.