Researchers believe that men have this advantage over women because their neuron development in the visual cortex is heightened by male hormones.
The study findings lend support to the hunter-gather hypothesis suggesting that each sex inherently falls into their prehistoric roles through their psychological abilities. Study authors indicated that men “would have to detect possible predators or prey from afar and also identify and categorize these objects more easily.”
In terms of a female’s visual instincts, researchers noted that they held an innate ability to recognize the details of nearby objects such as wild berries.
John Barbur, professor of optics and visual science at City University London, finds that women appear to be “worse off in terms of absolute chromatic [color] sensitivity than males.” However, he believes that females still finish ahead of men when determining color shades.
“If you’re not dealing with the absolute sensitivity for color detection but the way in which colors are judged-such as the ability to describe a color, or what the color means, and so on,” Barbur noted. “I’d say that females are definitely much better than males.”
