Psychologists report that a gender gap in spatial skills starts in infancy

Submitted by anthony on Tue, 2008-12-09 23:15

Article here. Excerpt:

'Men tend to perform better than women at tasks that require rotating an object mentally, studies have indicated. Now, developmental psychologists at Pitzer College and UCLA have discovered that this type of spatial skill is present in infancy and can be found in boys as young as 5 months old.

While women tend to be stronger verbally than men, many studies have shown that adult men have an advantage in the ability to imagine complex objects visually and to mentally rotate them. Does this advantage go back to infancy?

"We found the answer is yes," said Scott P. Johnson, a UCLA professor of psychology and an expert in infant perception, brain development, cognition and learning. "Infants as young as 5 months can perform the skill, but only boys — at least in our study."

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Comments

I wish there would be more studies on the difference between male and female brains especially in the primary years.

I wish schools could give parents a choice of male only or female only classrooms as I beleive that males and females have such a differnce of strengths and weaknesses. Also different parts of the brain develope at different times.

The educational system is currently geared toward girls, our boys are getting short-changed.

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Submitted by Kris on Wed, 2008-12-10 00:10

this theory about male/female intelligence differences
or the ability to learn more w/o the other gender present,
would be easy to prove/disprove on a large scale obvious to everyone
w/ an open mind.

take a large school and offer classes either way, w/ chicks or w/o.
you might want to vary men and women teachers for each class as well.
if there are special differences or trends, they should pop out.
might even be a way to figure which students should go in
what direction. how best to teach certain people. who knows?
also, might give an alternative place to put those boys acting out
trying to show out for the girls. a lot of times guys will
tell him to shut the f$%^ up. potential male teachers might feel like they have
a fair chance to teach, and not have to worry about just any female freqakazoid
telling lies that can ruin him. more male teachers might make a difference in the
overall discipline too. but i can believe some women might be against it.
it makes too much sense, and of course, it isn't just for females.

imho - it might help boys to concentrate if you separate the
boys and girls for a good
portion of the day, for obvious reasons. as a long time deer hunter i see what that
desire to get close and impress and $%^&* the other sex costs bucks, every year.
the big boys go from super skittish, super smart, and unbelievably aware
to (poof) super stupid.
and into my freezer, if i use that knowledge wisely. kinda different, buck deer
and men, but then again.

and don't even act like you don't remember how women screwed up our heads sitting there looking at them all day.
short skirts, long hair, those glances, the smell of them... yeah.

gotta go.

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Submitted by daveinga on Wed, 2008-12-10 04:05

Testosterone lateralizes the brain and specializes each hemisphere. Studies like this destroy the socialization excuse for male and female behavior.

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Submitted by Mr VanHuizen on Wed, 2008-12-10 04:19