COGNITIVE GENDER DIFFERENCES IN CHILDREN

用于研究人类认知性别差异的技术有限 通过将生物底物与环境和生物学物质分离的问题， 社会因素 后两个因素的相对权重为 如果人类的认知性别差异被证明， 使用最初用于猴子的性别测试 差异 此外，支持生物因素的论点 如果性别差异的方向， 这些测试中的猴子可以通过荷尔蒙控制来逆转。 两 这种测试是物体反转和同时物体辨别。 在幼猴身上进行的实验表明， 明显早于女性。 相比之下， 猴子学习后一项任务的时间明显早于雄性。 在两 任务，性别差异的方向可以通过操纵来逆转 围产期激素和/或新生儿特定脑部位消融。 由于这两项任务除了认知需求之外是相似的， 婴儿猴子的双重分离提供了强有力的证据， 认知的性别差异是由于不同的成熟率， 受激素影响的特定大脑区域。 为了 为了确定这种行为模式是否也存在于人类中， 拟议的研究将测试正常儿童和成人与这两个 行为程序 12至36个月的儿童，以及 成人对照组将在这两项任务上进行纵向测试， 测试程序的设计与 可能是那些用在猴子身上的 这些一般程序已 以前对孩子有效。 飞行员数据显示， 事实上，孩子们确实比我们更早地掌握了一系列的物体反转。 女性，相比之下，年轻女性似乎掌握并发症 歧视早于男性。 因为所有的性别差异 性别之间的某种程度的重叠，需要更多的科目 才能得出有统计意义的结论

Techniques used to study human gender differences in cognition are limited by the problem of separating biological substrates from environmental and social factors. The relative weightings of the latter factors would be reduced if cognitive gender differences in humans were demonstrated by using tests that were originally used with monkeys to show gender differences. Furthermore, the argument in favor of biological factors would be especially strong if the direction of the gender differences in monkeys on these tests could be reversed by hormonal manipulation. Two such tests are object reversal and concurrent object discriminations. Experiments in infant monkeys have shown that males learn the former task significantly earlier in life than do females. In contrast, infant female monkeys learn the latter task significantly earlier than do males. On both tasks, the direction of gender differences can be reversed by manipulation of perinatal hormones and/or neonatal ablations of specific brain sites. Since the two tasks are similar except in their cognitive demands, this double dissociation in infant monkeys provides strong evidence that some cognitive gender differences are due to differential maturational rates of specific brain areas which are under the influence of hormones. In order to determine whether this behavior pattern may also exist in humans, the proposed research will test normal children and adults with these two behavioral procedures. Children, ranging in age from 12 to 36 months, and adult controls will be tested longitudinally on the two tasks, using testing procedures which have been designed to resemble as closely as possible those used with monkeys. These general procedures have been effective previously with children. Pilot data indicate that young male children do, in fact, master a series of object reversals earlier than do females, and, in contrast, young females appear to master concurrent discriminations earlier than males. Because all gender differences involve some degree of overlap between the sexes, many more subjects are needed before statistically significant conclusions can be reached.