I went to Japan with 3 friends, all of us male. The itinerary was public and shared, we made discussions on where we were going each day. In train stations and cities all 3 of them asked me how was it that I didnt need to pause and could just keep walking to our next location. I pointed out the signs with perfectly legible english/romanji. The signage in Japan is great.

I get compliments on my perception, and refer to it as a minor super power of mine, but I think it's because I'm just constantly looking around.

/signed by someone who is also flabberghasted

Women tend to also process visuals differently. I do think I've seen data that show men's eyes tend to be more sensitive to movement while women tend to have better color recognition on average. Movement is often also detectable in the periphery.

So when women look at dark areas they may see more things there in color, this may create a sort of feedback loop for night time visual behavior in addition to obvious sociological concerns.

The way to test for a visual feedback loop would probably be to evaluate night time driving (or other safer conditions) differences to see if women tend to look more at low light areas.

Alternately you could put men and women out in the woods and see if their behavior aligns.

Would need to compare it to the same data sampled from different places.

is this happening just because women are more worried about getting attacked.

Uh... It's complicated, but

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_fear_of_crime

Long story short, the less likely the crime, the more women are afraid of it happening to them.

(And yes, this sentence is very slightly cherry picking data to provoke people to read the wikipedia page).

Wouldn't work, men don't just star blankly ahead, we scan the periphery without moving our eyes. We don't need to scan all around because our periphery is really good at spotting movement, this is why we can't see that thing in the fridge despite being right in front of us, it's not moving.

Doesn't the Jurassic Park power-restore scene align with this, too? Muldoon gets wrecked by a raptor on his side, while Ellie immediately notices/dodges the one that pokes through the wiring.

Yeah, peripheral is better to detect subtle movement in low contrast areas.

BYU = Brigham Young University. Famously mormon.

I put the source in the comments: https://news.byu.edu/intellect/study-visually-captures-hard-truth-walking-home-at-night-is-not-the-same-for-women

I'm in the same boat. My wife is oblivious most of the time while my head is on a swivel.

Makes sense for the school that expels women for being assaulted. As if I needed another reason to hate BYU

Considering how common and easy eye tracking is, this seems like some shitty science.

Fun fact, that behaviour, which becomes more common among people living in areas with higher crime rates as a self-preservation technique, is viewed as suspicious behaviour by police, and is likely to get you tracked by security if you do it in a store.

I tend to turn it into a "casual sweep" of the scene. I'm looking at leaves, architecture, license plates! Well, and also getting a glimpse of whoever's around me. From being bullied in grade school, to learning to fly in college, with growing up as a young women between the two eras, situational awareness has become baked into my existence. But it's not a bad thing, it's a skill.

Tangentially, I wonder how much of this increased situational awareness plays into our famous "women's intuition"? If we're taking in more of our surroundings, it makes sense our unconscious minds will notice more readily when something's "off."

As well, I've often considered my "luck" to come down to increased awareness. When retrospectively thinking about a sequence of events, I can sometimes put together how noticing A led to me doing B, even if I didn't consciously think about it at the time. Like unconsciously noticing that a car in front of you is somewhat lopsided and getting the urge to switch lanes and pass them. You're not thinking about it. But later on when that car spins out on a flat tire, you're well past them - a safe distance away.

Or a situation that undoubtly makes people think I'm lucky - finding four-leaf clovers. A split-second scan of the ground and I can notice a four-leafer in a patch. Just a few months ago I was pumpkin-picking with my girlfriend and it happened again. We were standing outside and I was telling her about this exact phenomenon when I stopped, laughed, crouched down, plucked one particular clover, and handed it to her. "See?! It just happens!" I then proceeded to find two more, and at that point I knew I had to stop myself.

So yeah, it's not all bad. :)

Based on reaction to images, clicking with a mouse where subjects looked

Could just as easily be a study on how different sexes respond to the same instruction