“Men and women often disagree about the meaning of women’s nonverbal cues, particularly those conveying dating-relevant information. Men perceive more sexual intent in women’s behavior than women perceive or report intending to convey. Although this finding has been attributed to gender differences in the threshold for labeling ambiguous cues as sexual in nature, little research has been conducted to determine etiology. Using a model that differentiates perceptual sensitivity from decisional bias, we found no evidence that men have lenient thresholds for perceiving women’s nonverbal behavior as indicating sexual interest. Rather, gender differences were captured by a relative perceptual insensitivity among men. Just as in previous studies, men were more likely than women to misperceive friendliness as sexual interest, but they also were quite likely to misperceive sexual interest as friendliness. The results point to the promise of computational models of perception in increasing the understanding of clinically relevant social processes.”

Viu, a gente realmente não entede. Sabe porque?

“Decoding sexual intent is an arguably difficult task, particularly if the perceiver hopes to decode intent early in an interaction. Women may smile, sustain eye contact, increase physical proximity, or touch their partner to convey romantic or sexual interest. However, all of these cues also could be used to convey simple warmth, friendliness, or platonic interest.”

Por Coreen Farris, em Perceptual Mechanisms That Characterize Gender
Differences in Decoding Women’s Sexual Intent na Psychological Science.