Sum of the parts? How our brains see men as people and women as body parts

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-07/uon-sot072512.php

Public release date: 25-Jul-2012
Contact: Sarah Gervais
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Sum of the parts? How our brains see men as people and women as body parts
Study finds that both genders process images of men, women differently

When casting our eyes upon an object, our brains either perceive it in its entirety or as a collection of its parts. Consider, for instance, photo mosaics consisting of hundreds of tiny pictures that when arranged a certain way form a larger overall image: In fact, it takes two separate mental functions to see the mosaic from both perspectives.

A new study suggests that these two distinct cognitive processes also are in play with our basic physical perceptions of men and women -- and, importantly, provides clues as to why women are often the targets of sexual objectification.

The research, published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, found in a series of experiments that participants processed images of men and women in very different ways. When presented with images of men, perceivers tended to rely more on "global" cognitive processing, the mental method in which a person is perceived as a whole. Meanwhile, images of women were more often the subject of "local" cognitive processing, or the objectifying perception of something as an assemblage of its various parts.