Posted on 03/05/2008 2:15:27 PM PST by blam
Boys And Girls Brains Are Different: Gender Differences In Language Appear Biological
New research shows that areas of the brain associated with language work harder in girls than in boys during language tasks, and that boys and girls rely on different parts of the brain when performing these tasks. (Credit: iStockphoto/Rich Legg)
ScienceDaily (Mar. 5, 2008) — Although researchers have long agreed that girls have superior language abilities than boys, until now no one has clearly provided a biological basis that may account for their differences.
For the first time -- and in unambiguous findings -- researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Haifa show both that areas of the brain associated with language work harder in girls than in boys during language tasks, and that boys and girls rely on different parts of the brain when performing these tasks.
"Our findings -- which suggest that language processing is more sensory in boys and more abstract in girls -- could have major implications for teaching children and even provide support for advocates of single sex classrooms," said Douglas D. Burman, research associate in Northwestern's Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the researchers measured brain activity in 31 boys and in 31 girls aged 9 to 15 as they performed spelling and writing language tasks.
The tasks were delivered in two sensory modalities -- visual and auditory. When visually presented, the children read certain words without hearing them. Presented in an auditory mode, they heard words aloud but did not see them.
Using a complex statistical model, the researchers accounted for differences associated with age, gender, type of linguistic judgment, performance accuracy and the method -- written or spoken -- in which words were presented.
The researchers found that girls still showed significantly greater activation in language areas of the brain than boys. The information in the tasks got through to girls' language areas of the brain -- areas associated with abstract thinking through language. And their performance accuracy correlated with the degree of activation in some of these language areas.
To their astonishment, however, this was not at all the case for boys. In boys, accurate performance depended -- when reading words -- on how hard visual areas of the brain worked. In hearing words, boys' performance depended on how hard auditory areas of the brain worked.
If that pattern extends to language processing that occurs in the classroom, it could inform teaching and testing methods.
Given boys' sensory approach, boys might be more effectively evaluated on knowledge gained from lectures via oral tests and on knowledge gained by reading via written tests. For girls, whose language processing appears more abstract in approach, these different testing methods would appear unnecessary.
"One possibility is that boys have some kind of bottleneck in their sensory processes that can hold up visual or auditory information and keep it from being fed into the language areas of the brain," Burman said. This could result simply from girls developing faster than boys, in which case the differences between the sexes might disappear by adulthood.
Or, an alternative explanation is that boys create visual and auditory associations such that meanings associated with a word are brought to mind simply from seeing or hearing the word.
While the second explanation puts males at a disadvantage in more abstract language function, those kinds of sensory associations may have provided an evolutionary advantage for primitive men whose survival required them to quickly recognize danger-associated sights and sounds.
If the pattern of females relying on an abstract language network and of males relying on sensory areas of the brain extends into adulthood -- a still unresolved question -- it could explain why women often provide more context and abstract representation than men.
Ask a woman for directions and you may hear something like: "Turn left on Main Street, go one block past the drug store, and then turn right, where there's a flower shop on one corner and a cafe across the street."
Such information-laden directions may be helpful for women because all information is relevant to the abstract concept of where to turn; however, men may require only one cue and be distracted by additional information.
Burman is primary author of "Sex Differences in Neural Processing of Language Among Children." Co-authored by James R. Booth (Northwestern University) and Tali Bitan (University of Haifa), the article will be published in the March issue of the journal Neuropsychologia and now is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.12.021.
Adapted from materials provided by Northwestern University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
That’s not really what he said.
It's all about the curves..... ;-)
True. But we never read media sob stories attributing this to societal discrimination.
All us guys know after many years of experience that gals do not say what they mean nor mean what they say. In addition, we know after years of experience that we should not say to a gal what we mean but try, thru thousands of years of evolution, to deduct what the gals want to hear us say. So, as an act of self defense, we say nothing that is incriminatory and as little as possible.
That's right. The reason it is important is because these differences have been blamed on discrimination. People who hire often have to account for having a higher percentage of men employed in jobs where men tend to excel.
Exactly. The gist of what he said was that due to innate differences, fewer women really WANT to pursue the rigorous career path that men who are successful in academic math and science pursue. A reasonable response might be to suggest that the rigidity of these career paths need to be changed, with actual ability and achievement given overriding priority, as opposed to demonstrating sufficient ability and achievement on a rushed timetable that is attractive only to people who put a very low priority on home and family life.
Should be “ . . . girls’ language ability is superior to that of boys” (or “ . . . girls’ language abilities are superior to those of boys”). Must have been written by a man. Or a publik skool graduate. Or both.
There’s no doubt that most IQ distribution follows (much) the same Normal curve — for both males and females. The question Summers was raising was whether there are differences between the sexes at the extremes of the curve — i.e. whether the curves for males is ever so slightly wider than that for females. There’s little dispute over the fact that there are more dysfunctional males than females. The question is whether the opposite holds true — i.e. whether the male’s IQ curve also stretches a bit further to the right. If males were twice as likely as females to be in the top one hundredth of one percent for math and science abilities; that would easily explain why male math and science PhDs outnumber females with the same qualifications.
The numbers involved would be so insignificant overall that there would essentially be no difference between male and female IQ scores. What little males gain at the extreme high end, they lose at the extreme low end. For the vast majority of us — you’re absolutely correct, intelligence is an individual gift.
Summers was suggesting more research into this hypothesis — because it has neither been proven nor disproven.
In a related development, Gloria Steinem, the ACLU, and Ms Magazine announced a class-action lawsuit against God for his discriminatory creation practices.
Charlotte Iserbyt in her great reference book, "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America" (available on line)clearly defines this.
The key word in all of this is DELIBERATE. Those who would tear down and control this great country know exactly what weapons to use in our government school classrooms. This is a BIG GUN in that arsenal
My last year in college, there were no females in any of my courses. Neither students nor professors. The year before there were maybe 5 in all courses combined.
The last and only female I worked with in research did pretty much nothing scientific. In the end, she was pretty much my secretary and handling contact with sponsors. I admit that she was better at communicating but she didn't deserve the same research credit.
On average, women's brains are suited for different tasks. It's lonely and women are very rare in my field.
Yeah, but this article doesn't say anything like that. You can go on all day about the verbal superiority of women with triggering any PC alarm bells.
lmao. I'd love to see these same researchers ask 31 random women for directions and see how many responses would actually get you to where you were asking to go.
Was this another Al Gore pork project, like Global warming Study’s?
C’mon come clean, I know he had his hand in this.
LOL
This isn’t true. We are all women—there are just a few with penises that don’t know it yet.
Not exactly a reason to homeschool but I thought you’d all enjoy this thread.
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