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Beauty is in the sex of the beholder
Posted by Kathy
March 16, 2009
Categories:  Randomness
8
comments


This is what I think is beautiful.

 

There’s a recent study in which men and women responded differently to beauty.  Researchers studied brain scans of men and women as they looked at different paintings and such.  When the female participants saw something they described as beautiful, their brain scans showed activity on both sides of the parietal region (top, back half of the brain – see pic), whereas the male participants showed activity on mostly the right side.

parietal

Why the difference?  There is quite a bit of research showing that male and female brains process spatial information differently.  So the researchers think it might have something to do with the division of labor among our hunter-gatherer hominin ancestors.  Navigating terrain to hunt and scanning the area to collect food could very well require different parts of the brain, and it’s possible that these differences in brain usage carried through many thousands of millenia to who we are today.

Isn’t the brain awesome?

The article.  And the abstract for the research paper.

Thanks to G!  Whose whole brain lights up whenever she sees a Vancouver Canuck.

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jessica f

March 16, 2009

i must agree, the brain is pretty amazing. its amazing too, how the two genders process it differently. brain division with roots from our ancestors = coolness.


G

March 16, 2009

Especially Kesler or Ohlund *looks around*

Totally forgot about this one too haha. Kathy, you could get away with not posting so much haha.


Auntie Kailin

March 16, 2009

I love how you unabashedly got bacon into this post on beauty. Ha Ha.


Kathy

March 16, 2009

Kailin, if I were more talented, I would incorporate bacon into every post I put up. ;)

G, it’s all your fault. ;)


G

March 16, 2009

*looks around*


jessicaf

March 16, 2009

yummmmmmmmmmmm baconnnn *drool*


Jamal

March 17, 2009

Even though I believe in equality between the two sexes, I don’t define equality necessarily as identical treatment. Men and women have so many differences, whether it be genetically, psychologically, or physiologically, I don’t think it is appropriate to assume equality as everything the same. We, as humans, have been complementing each other for a very long time and where one has weakness the other makes up in strength…. This article just shows another difference between men and women, but I interpret it as our uniqueness!
hmmmmmm I feel like I’m starting to ramble…=S


kalieblonde

June 3, 2009

Wonder what it would be like if both sexes processed things the same way, haha.