It may seem like the some of strangest research that money’s been thrown at but scientists have been exploring if men and women perceive beauty differently. They monitored neural activity of 10 women and 10 men as they looked at photographs, paintings, artifacts and rated their beauty. Differences emerged within 300 milliseconds of seeing the object, mainly centred on the parietal lobe which is involved in establishing spatial sense and navigation.

The women displayed activity on both sides of the lobe whereas men’s activity was concentrated on the right side. What does this actually mean? The left parietal lobe is linked to local visual awareness, while the right is about global visual consideration. So while men concentrated on the overall picture, woman also paid attention to the detail. From a design point of view it suggests men are more likely to judge the whole effect of a design and women will examine the smaller details.