Researchers from Brooklyn and Hunter Colleges of the City University of New York conducted a study to test vision differences in men and women. The participants were over the age of 16 and had normal colour vision and 20/20 vision (or 20/20 when corrected with glasses or contacts). Published in the journal Biology of Sex Differences, the study found a few significant results. Men are less able to discriminate between long wavelength colours, perhaps explaining why your boyfriend compliments your pink dress when it is actually magenta. The researchers also found that men are better at discriminating rapidly moving images by asking participants to view flickering horizontal and vertical bars alternating in closeness. Both sexes had greater difficulty resolving the images when the speed of flickering increased.
In addition, men were also found to have a greater sensitivity to detail. An underlying biological mechanism involves androgens being more prevalent in the male brain and responsible for the processing of images. In fact, the male brain has 25 per cent more neurons that are developmentally controlled by androgens than in females.
The study supplements years of research looking at other marked differences between the sexes, including in olfactory and hearing systems.
Source: Cornell University
