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.
You say Deloris, I say....
If I said on average men are a little taller than women, that would be the plain truth.
What you quoted from the original article:
Boys And Girls Brains Are Different: Gender Differences In Language Appear Biologicalcould be read either way ... it's ambiguous.
When someone comes away from a statement that has two possible readings, one hogwash and one common truth, complaining of hogwash, then others observing this can only wonder why that someone only saw the hogwash.
Do you raise hogs for a living? Just asking.
Anyone that has observed a classroom knows that boys and girls learn differently. Genetics would be the reason.
Teachers who realize this have happy students. Those who still believe a “one size fits all” approach have unhappy students.
My impression is that most people, unless they have some job or circumstance that routinely presents them with requests for direction such as gas station attendent, hotel clerk, or rental car agent, will give rather unreliable directions in response to unexpected requests.
What I do notice that's different between directions from men and women is somewhat different than what this quote from the article suggests. I hear women give more landmarks and visual details ("turn at the post office, across from the shoe store"), and men give more directions and distances ("north on I35 for five miles, then east on Smith Road.")
Similarly, men do better getting to a strange location using a map; women do better hearing someone tell them what they'll be seeing, as they travel there.
When I'm traveling, if I loose my orientation, then I'm lost. When my wife is traveling, so long as she sees something familiar, she'll get there.
Wow! We have known this for years, but scientists were afraid to say anything for fear of the fierce wrath of feminazis.
You know your a geek when you recognize Maxwell’s equations on a naked chicks back.
Must be a good thing. It keeps the species going!
You're.
I have an expression that I used frequently with my homeschooled kids: “You don’t have to be Mr. Atlas to lift a 10 lb. bag of sugar.” This is true for most professions in this world. You don’t have to be the elite of the elite to do most of the work that needs to be done in this world, you just need to be smart enough.
While there are likely biological differences between men and women in mathematics, those differences are probably not enough to keep women from most professions requiring skill in mathematics. Just as with the 10 lb. bag of sugar, all that is needed is to be smart enough, motivated, and committed to hard work.
By the way, my homeschooled daughters graduated at the ages of 18 with B.S degrees in mathematics from a state university. The older of the two won a university level mathematics competition. (As a prize the math department gave her “Ski Mt.Snow” tee-shirt.) This young woman recently earned a masters in mathematics at the age of 20. The girls are both married now, and are not pursuing further education in the field of mathematics. The older is very interested in finance, and the younger is studying chemical engineering.
I attended Villanova University soon after it had gone co-ed. I was often the only woman in my science classes. I routinely scored highest in the class in calculus, differential equations, numerical analysis, engineering physics, and chemistry major’s chemistry. I am certainly not among the elite of the elite, but I was, and am, capable of doing almost anything in any field that requires strong understanding of mathematics. I am smart enough to lift a 10 lb. bag of “mathematics”. ( and so are my girls!) :-)
What female author can be compared to Shakespeare? Ernest Hemingway? Robert Frost? John Grisham? James Patterson? Robert Parker?
Thus... the term hogwash when it comes to comparing verbal skills of boys and girls.
Jane Austen is terrific at *Bonnet Books* ...Mary Higgins Clark --> lightweight mysteries ...Daniel Steele -- gag me with a spoon romance BS
Realize I've left many authors out... but this is a chat board.
When I responded to your earlier post, I thought you were stating that the article found differences between men and women's verbal skills, and I thought you were saying that was hogwash ... meaning you thought the article said there was a basic difference between men and women, and you disagreed.
But in your latest reply, you obviously find that there are differences, and give good examples of such.
Color me confused.
Please remember, if you respond, that sarcasm and cynicism aren't always obvious on the internet between strangers, so if you choose to use such, it is done so at an increased risk of being misunderstood.
Because he made female professors cry and feel faint at telling them that men and women are different.
The answers are on the other side
Could you post it now, so I can see how I did?
I think you need to review statistics (math and science). :)
I think even the densest of women would notice if they had a penis.
LOL.
I’ll ask my wife if she remembered to make a doctor’s appointment.
She will answer that the garbage men ran late today.
She is perfectly confident that she answered my question.
Or she will start a conversation with, “We need a blue one.” I’m left wondering what the heck the topic is.
I had a woman ask me in front of a committee if it was possible to get two women to agree on anything. I responded I didn’t think it was possible to get one of them to agree on anything.
I learned, to my surprise, that math is really not hard. It has certain rules about what you can and cannot do with numbers. You follow the rules and it works.
LOL ;-P
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