Elsevier

Brain and Cognition

Volume 36, Issue 3, April 1998, Pages 377-389
Brain and Cognition

Regular Article
Sex Differences in Right Hemisphere Tasks,☆☆

https://doi.org/10.1006/brcg.1998.0999Get rights and content

Abstract

We tested the hypothesis that sex differences in spatial ability and emotional perception are due to sex differences in intrahemispheric organization of the right hemisphere. If the right hemisphere is differently organized by sex—primarily specialized for spatial ability in men, but primarily specialized for emotional perception in women—then there should be a negative correlation between spatial ability and emotional perception within sex, and the greatest disparity between abilities should be found in people with characteristic arousal of the right hemisphere. Undergraduate men (N= 86) and women (N= 132) completed tests of Mental Rotation, Surface Development, Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity, Progressive Matrices, and Chimeric Faces. Although the expected pattern of sex differences was observed, there was no evidence for the hypothesized negative correlation between spatial ability and emotional perception, even after statistical control of general intelligence.

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  • Cited by (0)

    This study represents Gregory Crucian's dissertation research and was supported in part by NIH grant HD19644. We thank Drs. Thomas Sawyer, Jeanne Thomas, Jennifer O'Brien, and Naomi Wenthworth for helping to recruit subjects, Drs. Michael Seidenberg, Margaret Primeau, Caroline Clements, and J. Michael Bailey for serving as thesis committee members, and Kristina Korman for assistance with data entry and analysis. We are very grateful to the subjects for their participation in the study.

    Gregory Crucian is now in the Department of Neurology, University of Florida Health Science Center, Gainesville, FL. Sheri Berenbaum is now in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, School of Medicine, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL.

    Address correspondence and reprint requests to Sheri Berenbaum, Behavioral and Social Sciences, 6517, School of Medicine, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901. E-mail:[email protected].

    ☆☆

    E. D. Bigler

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