The Brain-Sex Theory of Occupational Choice: A Counterexample

The brain-sex theory of occupational choice suggests that males and females in male-typical careers show a male pattern of cognitive ability in terms of better spatial than verbal performance on cognitive tests with the reverse pattern for females and males in female-typical careers. These differences are thought to result from patterns of cerebral functional lateralisation. This study sought such occupationally related effects using synonym generation (verbal ability) and mental rotation (spatial ability) tasks used previously. It also used entrants to these careers as participants to examine whether patterns of cognitive abilities might predate explicit training and practice. Using a population of entrants to sex-differentiated university courses, a moderate occupational effect on the synonym generation task was found, along with a weak ( p<.10) sex effect on the mental rotation task. Highest performance on the mental rotation task was by female students in fashion design, a female-dominated occupation which makes substantial visuospatial demands and attracts many students with literacy problems such as dyslexia. This group then appears to be a counterexample to the brain-sex theory. However, methodological issues surrounding previous studies are highlighted: the simple synonym task appears to show limited discrimination of the sexes, leading to questions concerning the legitimacy of inferences about lateralisation based on scores from that test. Moreover, the human figure-based mental rotation task appears to tap the wrong aspect of visuospatial skill, likely to be needed for male-typical courses such as engineering. Since the fashion-design career is also one that attracts disproportionately many male students whose sexual orientation is homosexual, data were examined for evidence of female-typical patterns of cognitive performance among that subgroup. This was not found. This study therefore provides no evidence for the claim that female-pattern cerebral functional lateralisation is likely in gay males.

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Sex Differences in Verbal and Spatial Ability Reconsidered in Relation to Body Size Lung Volume, and Sex Hormones

Perceptual and Motor Skills ◽

10.2466/pms.2003.96.3c.1347 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 96 (3_suppl) ◽

pp. 1347-1360 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Üner Tan ◽

Mukadder Okuyan ◽

Tugba Albayrak ◽

Ahmet Akgun

Keyword(s):

Sex Differences ◽

Body Size ◽

Mental Rotation ◽

Sex Difference ◽

Sex Hormones ◽

Lung Volume ◽

Verbal Ability ◽

Mental Rotation Task ◽

Intelligence Test ◽

Better Than

Sex differences in verbal and nonverbal abilities were reconsidered in relation to bodily measures and sex hormones in Turkish university students. Perceptual-verbal ability was evaluated using As Test. To assess the nonverbal abilities, the mental rotation test and Cattell's Culture Fair Intelligence Test were used. As expected, the 53 women performed better than men on the As Test; 79 men had a higher mean than the 53 women on the mental rotation task; there was no sex difference on Cattell's IQ Test. Cattell IQs correlated only with tidal volume of lungs. Scores on the As Test did not show significant correlations with body size and lung capacities. Mental rotation was significantly correlated with height, weight, and lung volume. With covariates of height, weight, and vital capacity, sex differences in mental rotation completely disappeared, but the difference on the As Test increased while Cattell IQ remained sex-neutral. With testosterone as covariate, the sex difference on the As test increased but on the mental rotation task disappeared; Cattell IQ was sex-neutral. With covariates of estradiol and progesterone, sex differences on the As test disappeared; mental rotation scores and Cattell IQ were not influenced. Under a combined covariation of height, weight, and testosterone, sex differences in mental rotation reversed, women scoring better than men; after adding estradiol or progesterone instead of testosterone to this model, sex differences on mental rotation completely disappeared, but verbal ability and Cattell IQ were not changed. These results suggest that Cattell's Culture Fair Intelligence Test is unique in resistance to sex differences; perceptual-verbal ability was the most sex-specific mental trait but with dependence on estradiol; mental rotation, on the contrary, was least sex-specific, depending on body size, lung volume, sex hormones, and their combined actions, which explains women's better performance.

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Spatial cognition in children with physical disability; what is the impact of restrictedindependent exploration?

10.31234/osf.io/gk4we ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Emily Farran ◽

Valerie Critten ◽

Yannick Courbois ◽

Emma Campbell ◽

David Messer

Keyword(s):

Mental Rotation ◽

Spatial Cognition ◽

Physical Disability ◽

Learning Difficulties ◽

Verbal Ability ◽

Mental Rotation Task ◽

Special Educational Needs ◽

Ability Group ◽

Wheelchair Users ◽

The Impact

On account of the developmental relationship between motor ability and spatial skills. we investigated the impact of physical disability (PD) on spatial cognition. Fifty-three children with special educational needs including PD took part. The children with PD were divided into those who were wheelchair users (N=34) and those who had independent locomotion (N=19). This division enabled us to additionally determine the impact of limited independent physical exploration on spatial competence (exploration is typically relatively restricted for wheelchair users). Performance of the PD groups was compared to that of typically developing (TD) children who spanned the range of non-verbal ability of the PD groups. Participants completed three spatial tasks; a mental rotation task, a Bee-bot route task and a desktop virtual reality (VR) navigation task. The PD groups broadly demonstrated lower levels of performance than the TD children. However, when performance was considered with reference to participant’s learning difficulties, this demonstrated that levels of impairment across tasks were broadly commensurate with their overall level of non-verbal ability. The exception to this was the performance of the PD wheelchair group on the mental rotation task, which was below that expected for their level of non-verbal ability. Group differences in task approach were evident for the Bee-Bot task; both PD groups showed a different pattern of errors than the TD group. These findings suggest that for children with learning difficulties and PD, the developmental impact of having physical disabilities on spatial ability, over and above the impact of having learning difficulties, is minimal.

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Spatial Cognition in Children With Physical Disability; What Is the Impact of Restricted Independent Exploration?

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience ◽

10.3389/fnhum.2021.669034 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 15 ◽

Author(s):

Emily K. Farran ◽

Valerie Critten ◽

Yannick Courbois ◽

Emma Campbell ◽

David Messer

Keyword(s):

Mental Rotation ◽

Spatial Cognition ◽

Physical Disability ◽

Learning Difficulties ◽

Verbal Ability ◽

Mental Rotation Task ◽

Special Educational Needs ◽

Ability Group ◽

The Impact ◽

Spatial Programming

Given the developmental inter-relationship between motor ability and spatial skills, we investigated the impact of physical disability (PD) on spatial cognition. Fifty-three children with special educational needs including PD were divided into those who were wheelchair users (n = 34) and those with independent locomotion ability (n = 19). This division additionally enabled us to determine the impact of limited independent physical exploration (i.e., required wheelchair use) on spatial competence. We compared the spatial performance of children in these two PD groups to that of typically developing (TD) children who spanned the range of non-verbal ability of the PD groups. Participants completed three spatial tasks; a mental rotation task, a spatial programming task and a desktop virtual reality (VR) navigation task. Levels of impairment of the PD groups were broadly commensurate with their overall level of non-verbal ability. The exception to this was the performance of the PD wheelchair group on the mental rotation task, which was below that expected for their level of non-verbal ability. Group differences in approach to the spatial programming task were evident in that both PD groups showed a different error pattern from the TD group. These findings suggested that for children with both learning difficulties and PD, the unique developmental impact on spatial ability of having physical disabilities, over and above the impact of any learning difficulties, is minimal.

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Individual Differences in Mental Rotation

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000184 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 60 (3) ◽

pp. 164-171 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Peter Khooshabeh ◽

Mary Hegarty ◽

Thomas F. Shipley

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Mental Rotation ◽

Response Times ◽

Task Demands ◽

Mental Rotation Task ◽

Imagery Ability ◽

Alternative Strategies

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that imagery ability and figural complexity interact to affect the choice of mental rotation strategies. Participants performed the Shepard and Metzler (1971) mental rotation task. On half of the trials, the 3-D figures were manipulated to create “fragmented” figures, with some cubes missing. Good imagers were less accurate and had longer response times on fragmented figures than on complete figures. Poor imagers performed similarly on fragmented and complete figures. These results suggest that good imagers use holistic mental rotation strategies by default, but switch to alternative strategies depending on task demands, whereas poor imagers are less flexible and use piecemeal strategies regardless of the task demands.

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Effect of Environmental Enrichment on the Brain and on Learning and Cognition by Animals

Animals ◽

10.3390/ani11040973 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (4) ◽

pp. 973

Author(s):

Thomas R. Zentall

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Environmental Enrichment ◽

Behavioral Effect ◽

Enriched Environment ◽

Main Concern ◽

Accurate Assessment ◽

Housing Conditions ◽

Complex Tasks ◽

Learning And Cognition ◽

The Brain

The humane treatment of animals suggests that they should be housed in an environment that is rich in stimulation and allows for varied activities. However, even if one’s main concern is an accurate assessment of their learning and cognitive abilities, housing them in an enriched environment can have an important effect on the assessment of those abilities. Research has found that the development of the brain of animals is significantly affected by the environment in which they live. Not surprisingly, their ability to learn both simple and complex tasks is affected by even modest time spent in an enriched environment. In particular, animals that are housed in an enriched environment are less impulsive and make more optimal choices than animals housed in isolation. Even the way that they judge the passage of time is affected by their housing conditions. Some researchers have even suggested that exposing animals to an enriched environment can make them more “optimistic” in how they treat ambiguous stimuli. Whether that behavioral effect reflects the subtlety of differences in optimism/pessimism or something simpler, like differences in motivation, incentive, discriminability, or neophobia, it is clear that the conditions of housing can have an important effect on the learning and cognition of animals.

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A bigger brain for a more complex environment

Reviews in the Neurosciences ◽

10.1515/revneuro-2020-0041 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 31 (8) ◽

pp. 803-816

Author(s):

Umberto di Porzio

Keyword(s):

Human Brain ◽

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Molecular Genetic ◽

Adult Size ◽

Genetic Changes ◽

Cultural Challenges ◽

Birth Canal ◽

Newborn Brain ◽

Neuronal Interactions ◽

The Brain

AbstractThe environment increased complexity required more neural functions to develop in the hominin brains, and the hominins adapted to the complexity by developing a bigger brain with a greater interconnection between its parts. Thus, complex environments drove the growth of the brain. In about two million years during hominin evolution, the brain increased three folds in size, one of the largest and most complex amongst mammals, relative to body size. The size increase has led to anatomical reorganization and complex neuronal interactions in a relatively small skull. At birth, the human brain is only about 20% of its adult size. That facilitates the passage through the birth canal. Therefore, the human brain, especially cortex, develops postnatally in a rich stimulating environment with continuous brain wiring and rewiring and insertion of billions of new neurons. One of the consequence is that in the newborn brain, neuroplasticity is always turned “on” and it remains active throughout life, which gave humans the ability to adapt to complex and often hostile environments, integrate external experiences, solve problems, elaborate abstract ideas and innovative technologies, store a lot of information. Besides, hominins acquired unique abilities as music, language, and intense social cooperation. Overwhelming ecological, social, and cultural challenges have made the human brain so unique. From these events, as well as the molecular genetic changes that took place in those million years, under the pressure of natural selection, derive the distinctive cognitive abilities that have led us to complex social organizations and made our species successful.

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Neuroimaging correlates of insight in obsessive compulsive disorder: A fMRI study

European Psychiatry ◽

10.1016/j.eurpsy.2017.01.344 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 41 (S1) ◽

pp. S409-S409

Author(s):

A. Gadad ◽

D.Y.C.J. Reddy ◽

D.G. Venkatasubramanian ◽

D.J. C.N

Keyword(s):

Mental Rotation ◽

Negative Correlation ◽

Mental Rotation Task ◽

Healthy Controls ◽

Inferior Parietal Lobule ◽

Good Insight ◽

Compulsive Disorder ◽

Accuracy Ratio ◽

Parietal Lobule ◽

Medial Frontal Gyrus

Aim of the studyTo study the neural substrates of insight in OCD by comparing patients with good insight, patients with poor insight and matched healthy controls using functional MRI.MethodologySubjects were recruited from among patients attending OCD clinic, adult psychiatry services and psychiatry ward inpatients of National Institute of Mental Health And Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore. They were further divided into ‘good insight’ (n = 30) and ‘poor insight’ (n = 14) using Brown's assessment of belief's scale. Control subjects (n = 30) were recruited from consenting volunteers. 3 T MRI was used mental rotation task was paradigm used for fMRI and analysis was done by SPM 8.ResultsPoor insight patients and good insight patients comparison revealed differential activation in left superior/medial frontal gyrus (corresponding to the DLPFC). A negative correlation between BABS score and activation of right inferior parietal lobule. Mental rotation task behavioural data results: OCD patients as a group had significantly lower accuracy compared to healthy controls. Poor insight group had significantly decreased accuracy ratio compared to good insight group and healthy controls. A negative correlation was noted between BABS score and accuracy ratio, indicating that poorer the insight, greater the errors during the active task.ConclusionInsight has been important prognostic factor in OCD. Poor insight patients had specific deficits in left medial frontal gyrus and right inferior parietal lobule as compared to good insight patients and healthy controls. Together, these indicate that insight has a strong neurobiological underpinning in OCD.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

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Mental Rotation Meets the Motion Aftereffect: The Role of hV5/MT+ in Visual Mental Imagery

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2010.21525 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 23 (6) ◽

pp. 1395-1404 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Ruth Seurinck ◽

Floris P. de Lange ◽

Erik Achten ◽

Guy Vingerhoets

Keyword(s):

Mental Rotation ◽

Mental Imagery ◽

Parietal Cortex ◽

Neural Activity ◽

Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽

Visual Motion ◽

Motion Aftereffect ◽

Mental Rotation Task ◽

Behavioral Performance ◽

Visual Mental Imagery

A growing number of studies show that visual mental imagery recruits the same brain areas as visual perception. Although the necessity of hV5/MT+ for motion perception has been revealed by means of TMS, its relevance for motion imagery remains unclear. We induced a direction-selective adaptation in hV5/MT+ by means of an MAE while subjects performed a mental rotation task that elicits imagined motion. We concurrently measured behavioral performance and neural activity with fMRI, enabling us to directly assess the effect of a perturbation of hV5/MT+ on other cortical areas involved in the mental rotation task. The activity in hV5/MT+ increased as more mental rotation was required, and the perturbation of hV5/MT+ affected behavioral performance as well as the neural activity in this area. Moreover, several regions in the posterior parietal cortex were also affected by this perturbation. Our results show that hV5/MT+ is required for imagined visual motion and engages in an interaction with parietal cortex during this cognitive process.

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Central Auditory Processing

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Neuroscience ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190264086.013.86 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Josef P. Rauschecker

Keyword(s):

Auditory Cortex ◽

Auditory Processing ◽

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Auditory Perception ◽

Auditory Brainstem ◽

Central Auditory Processing ◽

Visible Part ◽

Auditory Object ◽

Mother’S Voice ◽

The Brain

When one talks about hearing, some may first imagine the auricle (or external ear), which is the only visible part of the auditory system in humans and other mammals. Its shape and size vary among people, but it does not tell us much about a person’s abilities to hear (except perhaps their ability to localize sounds in space, where the shape of the auricle plays a certain role). Most of what is used for hearing is inside the head, particularly in the brain. The inner ear transforms mechanical vibrations into electrical signals; then the auditory nerve sends these signals into the brainstem, where intricate preprocessing occurs. Although auditory brainstem mechanisms are an important part of central auditory processing, it is the processing taking place in the cerebral cortex (with the thalamus as the mediator), which enables auditory perception and cognition. Human speech and the appreciation of music can hardly be imagined without a complex cortical network of specialized regions, each contributing different aspects of auditory cognitive abilities. During the evolution of these abilities in higher vertebrates, especially birds and mammals, the cortex played a crucial role, so a great deal of what is referred to as central auditory processing happens there. Whether it is the recognition of one’s mother’s voice, listening to Pavarotti singing or Yo-Yo Ma playing the cello, hearing or reading Shakespeare’s sonnets, it will evoke electrical vibrations in the auditory cortex, but it does not end there. Large parts of frontal and parietal cortex receive auditory signals originating in auditory cortex, forming processing streams for auditory object recognition and auditory-motor control, before being channeled into other parts of the brain for comprehension and enjoyment.

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