Who is better at reading others’ facial expressions, Men or Women ?
Marie Claire highlights this interesting question. According to the magazine, researchers from Edingburgh University found that via brain scans the rush of blood to the region of the brain involved in making emotional decisions suggests the male brain has to work harder to make emotional judgements.
The scientists presented both men and women with photographs of faces and had them rate how intelligent and approachable the individuals in the photos appeared.
An interesting find was that men took longer to decide how approachable the people in the pictures were. Despite taking their time men did ultimately come to the same conclusion as women.
This suggests that in life’s necessary quick judgment calls women are more efficient. Perhaps, this is due to our close connection to women’s close tie to their children and having (especially int he couple of years) determine what they feel with out the aid of language.
Professor Lawrie said of this study:
“Our findings suggest that men have developed strategies to cope with their lesser natural empathy by over-activating the parts of the brain that understand social cues.“