Women Look At Faces, Men Look At Crotches

Jockohomo alerted me to a "funny little article" originally posted by Jason Kottke. It was also referenced in a question on one of my favorite weekend pastimes: the radio show "Wait Wait" on NPR affiliate 89.3 KPCC. According to an article published by USC's Annenberg Center for Communications' Online Journalism Review entitled "Eyetracking points the way to effective news article design" by Laura Ruel and Nora Paul:

When photos do contain people related to the task at hand, or the content users are exploring, they do get fixations. However, gender makes a distinct difference on what parts of the photo are stared at the longest. Take a look at the hotspot below.

Although both men and women look at the image of George Brett when directed to find out information about his sport and position, men tend to focus on private anatomy as well as the face. For the women, the face is the only place they viewed.

Coyne adds that this difference doesn’t just occur with images of people. Men tend to fixate more on areas of private anatomy on animals as well, as evidenced when users were directed to browse the American Kennel Club site.

As Jockhomo says "Nothing wrong with dudes hanging out…checking out each others packages…"

What are YOU looking at?