Sexual differences in perception: men and women see differently
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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A new discovery by scientists from Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, casts doubt on a number of studies previously claimed that a person's ability to recognize faces does not depend on the ability to recognize objects.
To prove the opposite, the scientists conducted several tests, with the help of which it was possible to identify the relationship between the ability to recognize faces and the ability to recognize different objects by men and women. For this, the experts prepared a test, which includes eight categories of visually similar objects: leaves, owls, butterflies, birds, mushrooms, cars, airplanes and motorcycles.
For example, men who better recognize transport objects are better identified by persons, whereas women who tend to view and memorize living objects in detail also have the same abilities.
Researchers have simulated a new test, which is not inferior to the effectiveness of the Cambridge Advanced Memory Test. Using it, you can evaluate and "measure" a person's ability to recognize faces.
After acquaintance with a number of images, the participants were shown three photographs simultaneously - one of those pictures that they had already shown, and the other two - which the subjects had not previously seen. Then the participants were offered to choose a photo they had already seen.
To assess the results of the new test, scientists increased the number of subjects to 227. In the experiment, 75 men and 82 women aged 22 to 24 took part.
When the analysis of the data was carried out, experts found that an increase in the number of categories of demonstrated subjects showed what sex differences in visual perception of images consist of.
As it turned out, women were easier to navigate and could choose the right picture, if it were living objects, and men are much easier to understand vehicles.
"Gender differences in the solution of perceptual problems were not discovered for the first time. For example, the recent research of scientists also confirmed that men are better than women distinguish vehicles. The researchers tried to explain this by the fact that men have better developed abstract thinking. However, we found that women are better than men recognize objects of a different kind, which means that the entries about the more abstract abstract thinking in men, at least in this case, are groundless, the research authors say. - The conclusion of many scientists that the ability to recognize faces is not due to the ability to recognize objects, is based on comparing only one category of subjects for both men and women.
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