Thursday, July 30, 2009

Inane Studies: Men, women see differently due to hunter-gatherer past

I was initially interested in reading this study (apart from the repetition) ...

MEN are better at seeing things in the distance due to their hunter-gatherer past chasing animals, while women are better focusing on things at close range, a British study said.

In findings which reflect how men's and women's brains have evolved differently over thousands of years, they found that men are better at judging faraway targets.

Researchers tested their theory by asking a group of 48 men and women to use a laser pointer to mark the midpoint of lines on a piece of paper at different distances.


And I thought it could have implications for shooting, until I got to the next paragraph ...

Men were more accurate than women when the paper was placed at a distance of 100 centimetres, while women were more accurate when the target was only 50 centimetres away, within arm's reach.

Wait, what??? since when is a "faraway target" 100cms away? Especially when compared to 50cms. If you're a hunter and you've got an animal 100cms away, you've either caught it or you're dead!

Oh, and the rest of the article? ... Basically boring, but here it is anyway:

"Evidence already exists that separate pathways in the brain process visual information from near and far space,'' said psychologist Helen Stancey from Hammersmith and West London College.

"Our results suggest that the near pathway is favoured in women and the far pathway is favoured in men,'' she said, in a study published online in the British Journal of Psychology.

And she said: "These sex differences in visual processing may be a result of our hunter-gatherer evolutionary legacy.

"As the predominant gatherers, women would have needed to work well in near space, whereas the prey for (predominantly male) hunters would have been in far space.''


The article can be found here.

3 comments:

LL said...

I know that 100cm's is twice as far away as 50cm's - but give me a break.

How much did the study cost? Who paid for it? It sounds like government spending to achieve full employment for researchers.

If I bought these researchers for what they were worth and then sold them for what THEY thought they were worth, I'd make a fortune.

Julie said...

I'm with you there LL!!!

Old NFO said...

Yee Gods... Somebody actually PAID for that??? sigh...