ladybird

There is a famous stereotype that men are terrible at finding missing items and women are good at it. This was just demonstrated when I couldn’t find the music book I wanted. I asked Helen if she’d seen it, and there it was right in front of me on the music stand (DUH! Where else would it be!). There is a wonderful evolutionary explanation for this that appears to be quite well accepted by scientists in the field. It’s this:

Because of the thousands of years men have spent hunting, our brains have developed so as to be good at seeing movement. We therefore have difficulty seeing that mobile until it starts vibrating across the desk. In addition this gave us a narrow focus, and this makes finding that elusive pen harder still.

The phenomenon is sometimes called:

Male Pattern Blindness

It manifests as long-distance tunnel vision. Men can see further and in more detail but only things which are directly in their vision, and preferably moving. There is a further complication. Recent research has revealed that men like object and word to go together: “If the tub is facing the wrong way and he cannot read the label, he virtually can't see it”.

So how come women evolved such a wide field of vision, I hear you ask? This is the suggested explanation:

“As a nest-defender, a woman has brain software that allows her to have an arc of at least 45 degrees clear vision to each side of her head and above and below her nose. This was needed to keep an eye out for potential predators”

Much of the information in this blog came from reviews of Alan Pease’s book “Why Men Don’t Listen And Why Women Can’t Read Maps: How We’re Different and What To Do About It”. It sounds like an interesting book but I‘d keep losing it, so why bother buying it?

I found this nice Haiku at all poetry.com too:

“Honey, where's the milk?
I don't think it's in the fridge!
oh, wait... there it is. “

In the picture above, I didn’t see the ladybird until I uploaded the picture. It’s taken straight down into a crack in the wood of a groyne post.

Cheers, Tom.