Thebrains of men and womenare activated differently when they value thebeauty of a painting or an object, according to a study carried out by an international team in which the Spanish Francisco Ayala (University of California) and Camilo J. Cela Conde (University of the Balearic Islands) have participated. While in women both cerebral hemispheres are activated, men use only the right before an aesthetic stimulus.
To reach this conclusion, the researchers explored the brain activity of 10 men and 10 women with the help of themagnetoencefalografía (MEG), a technique that measures the magnetic fields produced by electrical currents in neurons to quantify their activity. The results showed that women maintain a relationship morecategoricalwith objects: they refer to the position of things or their parts in relation to other elements (above or below, in front of or behind, etc.). Men, on the other hand, maintain a relationship fundamentallytopographicalwith objects, with more information about distances.
As published today by the magazineProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS), scientists have found an evolutionary explanation for these differences, which would have to do with thedivision of labor between the sexes in our ancestors. According to this hypothesis,gatherer womenThey would tend to be more aware than their peers of objects in their environment, even those that were not directly related to their tasks. Themens,what were theyhuntersThey would use orientation strategies based on concepts such as distance and the situation with respect to the cardinal points.
