Another way in which men and women differ is in the way they listen. Research has shown that men tend to
place all of their attention on one thing at a time, but women do not. Instead, women commonly divide their
attention between a number of things at once and make connections between these different things. Since this comes so
easily to women, they are sometimes frustrated when men struggle to do this. For example, a common complaint among
women is that when a man is watching television, he often doesn’t hear a question asked by the person sitting right beside
him. Sakura Kumi has witnessed this many times in her house. Sakura says, “My mother used to get so frustrated trying to
get my father’s attention while he was watching TV, and I did too. So she got into the habit of standing in front of the TV and
saying, ‘Hiroshi, I’m about to ask you a question.’ It’s become sort of a family joke.”