Men and Women Visually Focus on Different Things

A recent study published in PLoS One has found that men and women view images in different ways. University of Bristol researchers asked 26 male and 26 female participants, ranging from ages 19-47, to study various images. From this, researchers found that gender differences emerged in terms of where the subjects tended to focus on in the images. These images included scenes from movies such as The Sound of Music, Inside Man, and The Blue Planet, and artwork including "People in the Sun" by Edward Hopper and "Three Graces" by David Bowers.

Image from National Geographic

Researchers found that women tended to view more of the overall image than men did. They also found that women also often focused on non-facial areas as well as areas slightly below where men tended to focus. Lead author Felix Mercer Moss, a vision researcher and doctoral student at the University of Bristol in the UK believes that risk aversion may be the cause of these differences. He says that, "Women may be attaching more risk to looking people in the eye."This may be the reason as to why women tend to focus their attention to a lower part of the body than men do. Previous studies have shown that there are clear gender differences when viewing an image that is emotional or sexually suggestive. However, this study differed in that Mercer Moss wanted to see if these gender differences would persist through more general and basic stimuli, and it turns out that they would.

Red regions are what women tend to look at. Blue regions
are what men tend to look at. See above image.
Image from National Geographic

I found this article interesting because I when I looked at the photo showing the regions where women viewed the photograph most often, I found that I viewed those same spots as well. The regions that the men were shown to have looked at I did not view as closely as they did. I would like to know why this occurs and I find it fascinating that it even occurs in the first place. I don't think I have any problems staring into the eyes of someone in a photograph since they aren't even there, so I'm not sure if I back up the whole "risk aversion" theory. That being said, perhaps I am just unaware that I am averting their eyes on a subconscious level.


Article: Battle of the Sexes: How Women and Men See Things Differently
Written By: Jane J. Lee
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/121130-gender-differences-eyes-science/