Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/02/19/men-and-women-see-the-night-differently-study-finds-photos.html
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What? This has nothing to do with physical differences, and men’s and women’s eyes aren’t positioned differently. What tf are you talking about?
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I was aware that male and female eyes do work differently, and that it was hormone therapy that first helped discovery as people transitioning from one gender to another noticed the differences. But that does not seem to be what is going on here.
Instead, this seems to reflect more about expectations more than actual vision, not so much now the two main genders see the night, but what they expect to see and glance accordingly.
So it seems to be less of a case of biology, of neural signals, but of psychology and learned behavior? Yes. In fact, the title of the study itself does dispel the false expectation I had, and after some reflection is entirely plausible. It basically confirms what I suspected long before I read this post.
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The title of the actual paper makes it perfectly clear what it’s about. “Gender-Based Heat Map Images of Campus Walking Settings: A Reflection of Lived Experience”. The title of this post, on the other hand, is a little misleading.
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My guess is that he is referring to how the heat maps themselves seem to mirror how species that have to avoid predators evolve to have their eye look more to the sides, predators fixate on the target. Not that humans actually have different eyes.
Also, to clarify, the thing I was talking bout in my post was how in one gender, edges take a more prominent role in sight, in the other it’s the colors and textures. And it’s not absolute, either, more an indicator of how hormones… no, I made my point that I was thinking wrong the first time. That it’s an interesting topic, but not relevant to this post.
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Exactly! It’s the BoingBoing title in my RSS feed that gave me false expectations.
I didn’t see the fnords.
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Maybe, but comparing men and women to prey and predator species is inaccurate, reductive, and offensive.
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I also disagree but for a different reason. This study sounds like it didn’t study eye movement, it studied click targets. Eye movements would have been interesting because it’s a step away from thought. Tracking where someone “clicks” can be influenced by other factors. Think of how we routinely ignore sections of pages with ad banners. Therefore, this study studied “clickability” areas for ment and women rather than unbridled attention.
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The instant I looked at the photos, I knew which was the ‘female response’. What’s more instructive, to me, is how men react to this difference stemming from very real safety concerns.
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No argument from me on that. I see it as an example of the pareidolia we risk falling into.
I thought this was going to be about night driving, or seeing better/differently in the dark. But it is more of a perception of the dark.
Kinda messed up those are the perceptions of the dark. 
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Exactly. And why do some people ignore the researchers takeaways?
(exerprt) Researchers found that women tend to be vigilant of their surroundings off the path, like dark areas or bushes, indicative of a heightened fear of personal and sexual crimes. Men, on the other hand, focus more on the path ahead. The disparity suggests that women’s experiences and fears of crime significantly influence their perception of safety.
Bottom Line
Male: “Nothin’ out here that can stand up to me. I’m a big strong dude.” [Stares straight ahead.]
Female: (Thinks about guys like the aforementioned) [Checks surroundings]
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Again… researchers takeaways
Reminders: Many Big Cat and Wild Canine hunting packs are led by the females.
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Why are you treating misogynistic garbage seriously?
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You see yourself as a predator?
Buddy, now we all do. Thanks for the warning.
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I can read, thanks.
And I can also foresee the likely direction this topic is headed, just based on a few existing comments thus far.
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nope. worse than that. men in this situation barely even think about it.
this is the very heart of what “privilege” means. it’s not that men are strong - plenty of women are way stronger, faster, tougher than i am - it’s that men target women, and women live with worry and fear that they will be targeted
men don’t have to worry about being targeted the way women do. so it’s not self perception. it’s the reality of our misogynistic society
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And the very first comment here was fucking testament to just that point…
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I don’t know. I can shoot a dude using just one eye.
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