Michael Gurian in his popular book What Could He Be Thinking? In the chapter entitled ‘The Male Brain at Home’ we learn that because ‘[t] he female brain takes in more sensory data’, a woman is more likely to ‘neurally register the bit of paper, the dog hair, the children’s toy shoved into the couch’. The ‘female brain’ is also ‘more likely to sense the book that is awry on the coffee table, the dust on the end table, the bed not made as she’d like it’.
Classic evolutionary psychology of the "on the African savannah, women did this, men did that" variety. Although surely if men were more detail-oriented (as you'd need to be to build jet engines or hunt animals) they would notice books that were awry *even more* than women?
In any case, I know that I'm about 100x more sensitive to things on tables not being at right angles than any of the women in my life...
