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Drawing on recent claims in the study of relationships, attachment, and emotion, the authors hypothesized that romantic love serves a commitment-related function and sexual desire a reproduction-related function.
...we define romantic love as a motivational state associated with feelings of attachment and the inclination to seek commitment with one partner, and we define sexual desire as a motivational state that leads the individual to seek opportunities for sexual activity.

Is there evidence that differentiates brief occurrences of romantic love from those of sexual desire? To our knowledge, the answer is no.
Romantic Love and Sexual Desire in Close Relationships. Gian C.Gonzaga, et al. Emotion. Vol 6. No. 2, 163–179.

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This evolutionary, attachment-related approach is best encapsulated
in Diamond’s (2003, 2004) biobehavioral model of romantic
love and sexual desire. Diamond argued that romantic love and
sexual desire serve different functions, namely to promote pair
bonding and sexual behavior, respectively. In support of these
claims, Diamond reviewed evidence showing that the subjective
experiences of romantic love and sexual desire are functionally
independent: Individuals can feel romantic love but not sexual
desire, or sexual desire but not romantic love, toward another
person. Romantic love and sexual desire, Diamond claimed, also
appear to be mediated by different physiological processes: oxytocin
(OT) and endogenous opioids in the case of romantic love,
and gonadal estrogens and androgens in the case of sexual desire.

Several theorists have proposed that, as emotions, romantic
love and sexual desire serve commitment- and reproductionrelated
functions, respectively, within short-term, romantic interactions
(Gonzaga, Keltner, Londahl, & Smith, 2001; Keltner &
Haidt, 2001; Shaver, Hazan, & Bradshaw, 1988). By implication,
brief occurrences of romantic love and sexual desire should be
associated with different experiences, displays, and physiological
processes that serve pair-bonding and reproductive functions,
respectively.

We selected couples to participate if they had been
monogamous for at least 3 months and both members of the couple were
Asian (24 couples), Caucasian (25 couples), or Latino (14 couples). We
determined ethnicity by self-reported ethnic categorization and open-ended
ethnic identification. On average, women were 20.4 years old, men were 21.3 years old and the couples had been dating 17.6 months, with a range of 3 to 60 months.

In Study 1, we found that the momentary experiences of romantic
love and sexual desire were distinct in their experiential correlates,
expressive behavior, and relationship outcomes. In terms of
experience, love and desire correlated with different emotions.
Love related most strongly to happiness, an approach-related state,
whereas desire was more strongly correlated with arousal andstates, such as fear and concern, that enhance attention to others. In
terms of expression, self-reports of love—but not desire, happiness,
or arousal—were related to affiliation cue displays (e.g.,
Duchenne smiles, gesticulation), whereas self-reports of desire—
but not love, happiness, or arousal—were related to sexual cue
displays (e.g., lip bites, touching the lips). In terms of relationship
outcomes, love was correlated with a variety of measures of
increased commitment. Desire but not love correlated with measures
of sexual satisfaction and behavior. We observed the relationships
between love and measures of commitment and between
sexual desire and measures of sexual behavior across different
ethnic backgrounds, attachment styles, and lengths of relationship,
which suggests some degree of universality in the markers of
momentary romantic love and sexual desire.

In humans, Turner et al. (1999, 2002) were the first to investigate
OT response to positive emotional stimuli. In one study,
women provided blood samples while reliving memories of love,
while reliving memories of sadness of loss or abandonment, and
during a massage from a female masseuse. Circulating OT increased
in response to massage but decreased when participants
recounted the loss of a loved one. Women who were in a romantic
relationship had greater increases in OT while recalling a love
event than women who were not in a relationship (Turner et al.,
1999). In follow-up work, Turner et al. (2002) found that OT
decreased while women relived an experience of happiness because
of love or infatuation.4 Finally, it has also been found that
OT is released in humans during sexual activity (Carmichael,
Dixen, Palmisano, Greenleaf, & Davidson, 1987; Murphy, Seckl,
Burton, Checkley, & Lightman, 1987). Some theorists posit that
this OT release promotes bonding between individuals who have
engaged in sexual activity (Carter, 1998; Hazan & Zeifman, 1999).

In Study 2, the expression of affiliation cues was
positively related to OT reactivity, a neuroendocrine response
thought to be associated with long-term commitment and monogamy.

Recent imaging studies showing that romantic love may lead
to distinct patterns of brain activation lend further credence to the claim that romantic love and sexual desire are distinct processes
(Aron et al., 2004; Bartles & Zeki, 2000).

The limitations to the current work are numerous and highlight
the need and the promise for further research. In Study 1, our
sample was young dating couples. Whether older couples show
similar displays associated with reports of romantic love and
sexual desire is significant for purposes of generalizability. This
kind of study also raises interesting and unanswered questions.
How do the displays of romantic love and sexual desire shift with
age? Are long-term partners better able to judge each other’s
displays of romantic love and sexual desire than younger partners?
As sexual desire presumably wanes and companionate love rises
over the course of a long-term bond, do the affiliative displays of
romantic love become more pronounced?

Many researchers
have assumed that sexual desire serves an initiation function by
motivating proximity seeking, which in turn keeps partners together
during the early stages of a relationship while commitment
grows (e.g., Hazan & Zeifman, 1994, 1999; Zeifman & Hazan,
1997). Our evidence shows that sexual desire was at the least
unrelated to commitment and that after we controlled for love it
was negatively related to commitment. This suggests that sexual
desire, in the absence of love, may play a larger role in motivating
the pursuit of short-term mating strategies rather than initiating
long-term commitments (e.g., Buss & Schmitt, 1993).

the relationship
among sexual desire, hormones, behavior, and physiological
arousal is quite complex and warrants continued empirical
attention.

It is widely assumed that positive
emotions are associated with more flexible, associative thought
and broadening social resources (Fredrickson, 1998).

Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). What good are positive emotions? Review of
General Psychology, 2, 300–319.

=== on a somewhat related issue:

arousal leads to activation of dominant behaviors ( zajonc, et al.). it is also known that men act "stupid" in the presence of a beautiful woman. is it possible that these phenomena are related?
it would be interesting to speculate on it with some examples from games and other performances.

on the other hand, love is an attachment related state. it seems to correlate with commitment. is it opposite to arousal? if yes, then we can speculate that presence of a loved one in the audience may not lead to stellar performance on standard tasks. but it might work for complex situations.

Should we send people in love on difficult missions. It would be interesting to describe a hypthetical love triangle scenario: love/lust/complexity/challenge.

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