Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling, neuroscientists at Newcastle University conducted a color-selection experiment with 208 volunteers between the ages of 20 and 26. Participants were asked to move a mouse cursor as quickly as possible to their preferred color from a series of paired, colored rectangles, controlled for hue, saturation and lightness. Each person completed three separate tests, then was retested two weeks later.
On average, the study found, all people generally prefer blue, something researchers have long known. The study also found that while both men and women liked blue, women tended to pick redder shades of blue — reddish-purple hues — while men preferred blue-green. To assess whether the color preferences could have been due to culture, the researchers tested 37 Han Chinese volunteers from mainland China, along with the 171 British Caucasian participants, and found the same male-female differences. Though the Chinese participants showed a greater overall preference for red than their British counterparts (red is considered an auspicious color in China), Chinese women and men diverged in color preference predictably along the red-green axis.
“This is the first study to pinpoint a robust sex difference in the red-green axis of human color vision,” says Yazhu Ling, co-author of the study. “And this preference has an evolutionary advantage behind it.”
Ling speculates that the color preference and women's ability to better discriminate red from green could have evolved due to sex-specific divisions of labor: while men hunted, women gatherered, and they had to be able to spot ripe berries and fruits. Another theory suggests that women, as caregivers who need to be particularly sensitive to, say, a child flushed with fever, have developed a sensitivity to reddish changes in skin color, a skill that enhances their abilities as the “emphathizer.”
Ling says that she and her colleagues plan to expand their research in future studies to other cultures — not only British and Chinese — and age groups, including infants, to further test the nature-versus-nurture concept.
Why do Boys Cheat?
It's innate. They cheat because they think the world is full of girls who would do what pleases them. Boys are ingrate! They are demanding. They always want things their way. THEY DON'T CARE.
Barbie is a fashion doll manufactured by the American toy-company Mattel, Inc. and launched in March 1959. American businesswoman Ruth Handler is credited with the creation of the doll using a German doll called Bild Lilli as her inspiration.
Barbie is the figurehead of a brand of Mattel dolls and accessories, including other family members and collectible dolls. Barbie has been an important part of the toy fashion doll market for over fifty years, and has been the subject of numerous controversies and lawsuits, often involving parody of the doll and her lifestyle.
Ruth Handler watched her daughter Barbara play with paper dolls, and noticed that she often enjoyed giving them adult roles. At the time, most children's toy dolls were representations of infants. Realizing that there could be a gap in the market, Handler suggested the idea of an adult-bodied doll to her husband Elliot, a co-founder of the Mattel toy company. He was unenthusiastic about the idea, as were Mattel's directors.
During a trip to Europe in 1956 with her children Barbara and Kenneth, Ruth Handler came across a German toy doll called Bild Lilli. The adult-figured doll was exactly what Handler had in mind, so she purchased three of them. She gave one to her daughter and took the others back to Mattel. The Lilli doll was based on a popular character appearing in a comic strip drawn by Reinhard Beuthin for the newspaper Die Bild-Zeitung. Lilli was a blonde bombshell, a working girl who knew what she wanted and was not above using men to get it. The Lilli doll was first sold in Germany in 1955, and although it was initially sold to adults, it became popular with children who enjoyed dressing her up in outfits that were available separately.
