Female intuition is a myth, according to a new study that suggests men have an equal, if not greater, claim to the power of the mind.
The study of more than 15,000 people for the Edinburgh International Science Festival found that men are slightly more intuitive when asked to judge whether smiles are real or fake, reports the Scottish daily Scotsman.
Participants in the study called Sixth Sense were asked to judge how intuitive they thought they were before being shown a series of photographs of people smiling.
Women thought they were more intuitive — with 78 per cent of women ranking themselves as highly intuitive, compared to only 58 per cent of men.
But when participants — 60 per cent of whom were female — were shown 10 pairs of photographs of men and women smiling, it was the men who managed to identify an average 72 per cent of the genuine smiles. Women spotted 71 per cent.
Richard Wiseman, the psychologist behind the study, said: "We have amassed a huge amount of information, and initial analyses from the festival events have already yielded some fascinating findings.
"These findings question the notion that women are really more intuitive than men. Some previous research has found evidence for female intuition, but perhaps over time men have become more in touch with their intuitive side."
{{/usCountry}}"These findings question the notion that women are really more intuitive than men. Some previous research has found evidence for female intuition, but perhaps over time men have become more in touch with their intuitive side."
{{/usCountry}}Participants, aged between 10 and 89, were shown the images on the festival's website as well as at events across the city. Wiseman revealed there was no correlation between participants' age and their ability to tell the differences between smiles.
Female intuition was dealt another blow when it was shown that women had trouble telling if the male models used in the pictures were faking their smiles.
Only 67 per cent of women correctly identified male fake smiles compared with 76 per cent of men spotting female fake smiles.
Elisabeth Cornwell, a psychologist at St Andrews University's perception lab, said: "What we think of as intuition is often just our brains being clever and processing information.
"It's more a case of our experiences influencing our decisions in a way that we're not aware of consciously."
Singling out one particular part of the study, Cornwell said: "One possible explanation for men interpreting women's smiles well is that men tend to read more into women's smiles."