At the eye
Men show roughly 38% greater macular pigment optical density (Hammond and colleagues). Women show more peripheral retinal nerve fibre in large eye studies. The gap at the retina is already large before the cortex magnifies it.
The ledger
Two visual worlds. One missed approach.
The book does not invent a study. It places eye anatomy, early visual cortex, neuromodulators, and social-cognition networks on the same table — then walks them through a school hall, a pavement, and a sofa.
In the early visual cortex
Weaker feedback from higher visual areas in men enlarges the central map (cortical magnification) and suppresses the periphery. Women keep a more global, reciprocal flow — the landmarking system.
In the chemistry
Oestrogen raises noradrenaline synthesis, sensitivity and conservation. That integration is what keeps the corners of the room in mind. Acetylcholine does the opposite: it isolates the centre. The two systems are not a personality difference. They are a sensorium difference.
In the social brain
Vision lands in motor maps. Other people’s looking is simulated as if you were doing it (mirror neurons), then given a self-story (default mode network). Direct gaze can open approach. Averted gaze can close it — through medial versus lateral orbitofrontal cortex, and the right inferior frontal gyrus.
Citations live in the book
Hammond on macular pigment, Abramov on spatiotemporal resolution, Rolls on orbitofrontal reward and non-reward, and the rest of the numbered bibliographies — including CVP and PVC — are in the 1st and 3rd editions. This page is the map, not the archive.