Cognitive gender differences in very young children parallel biologically based cognitive gender differences in monkeys.
Infant humans were trained on 2 cognitive tests that have previously revealed, in infant monkeys, a double dissociation that was reversible by perinatal manipulations of androgens and ablations of specific brain sites. Children showed the same sex-linked behavior found with infant monkeys: young boys were superior on the object reversal task and young girls were superior on the concurrent discrimination task. As happened previously with infant monkeys, the gender difference was not apparent in older human subjects. Thus, early in ontogeny, cognitive gender differences have now been discovered in both humans and monkeys, probably a result of gender differences in androgens that influence the maturation rate of specific brain systems.
Overman
W H
WH
Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Wilmington 28403, USA.
Bachevalier
J
J
Schuhmann
E
E
Ryan
P
P
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000728:Androgens / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology; D003867:Depth Perception / Q000502:physiology; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D000882:Haplorhini; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology*; D012193:Reversal Learning / Q000502:physiology; D012733:Sex Differentiation / Q000502:physiology*; D012858:Size Perception / Q000502:physiology; D013045:Species Specificity
D000728:Androgens