Away from a Unisex Psychology: Individual Differences in Visual Sensory and Perceptual Processes

Abstract

Four tests of visual perception were given to twenty-five men and twenty-five women. These were a test of acuity, threshold for four field positions, visual persistence, and a measure of comfortable brightness. Subjects also completed five personality questionnaires. In most measures, differences were found to be related to sex rather than to personality factors. In fact, the analyses performed suggest that personality tests do not measure equivalent processes in men and women. Correlational analysis showed all visual functions to be independent of one another with the exception of photopic acuity and scotopic threshold, which were highly correlated. Two new findings on the visual system emerged which have not been reported elsewhere: (i) Four distinct dark adaptation curves were produced, and have been labeled as exponential, flat-exponential, linear, and plateau. All subjects fell into one of these categories and showed a consistent trend to exhibit these curves for all field positions, (ii) Highly significant differences were found in sensitivity for the four visual fields, the upper field was superior, followed by the right, then left, with the lower visual field considerably poorer.