'These sex differences in visual processing may be a result of our hunter-gatherer evolutionary legacy. As the predominant gatherers, women would have needed to work well in near space, whereas the prey for (predominantly male) hunters would have been in far space,' added Stancey.

In a second study, participants were asked to do the same task, but were asked to point to the mid-point using a stick rather than a laser pointer.

In this study, no significant differences between near and far accuracy were found in either men or women, suggesting that the stick provides feedback which makes the brain process distant information as if it's in near space.

Women were found to be significantly better than men at both distances using the stick, which supports the earlier finding that women process visual information better from near space than men.

These findings were published online Thursday in the British Journal of Psychology.