An example of junk science re: objectification.

[redqueen]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120725150215.htm

How Our Brains See Men as People and Women as Body Parts: Both Genders Process Images of Men, Women Differently

ScienceDaily (July 25, 2012) — 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.

(snip)

"Local processing underlies the way we think about objects: houses, cars and so on. But global processing should prevent us from that when it comes to people," Gervais said. "We don't break people down to their parts -- except when it comes to women, which is really striking. Women were perceived in the same ways that objects are viewed."

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Yeah, right. More evo psych nonsense.

How ridiculous to ignore reality. It's completely socialised behavior. Our sex obsessed society/media objectifies women constantly, yet somehow this woman thinks that ie just natural behavior? If the media put 500% more effort into obsessing on six-pack stomachs and broad shoulders like they do breasts, legs and bums, then it would end up viewing men as objects too.