Hirnstein Marco, Ocklenburg Sebastian, Schneider Daniel, Hausmann Markus
Department of Psychology, University of Durham, Durham, UK.
Cortex. 2009 Jul-Aug;45(7):891-9. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2008.11.009. Epub 2008 Nov 21.
Numerous studies have reported that women believe they are more susceptible to left-right confusion than men. Indeed, some studies have also found sex differences in behavioural tasks. It has been suggested that women have more difficulties with left-right discrimination, because they are less lateralised than men and a lower degree of lateralisation might lead to more left-right confusion (LRC). However, those studies reporting more left-right confusion for women have been criticised because the tasks that have been used involved mental rotation, a spatial ability in which men typically excel. In the present study, 34 right-handed women and 31 right-handed men completed two behavioural left-right discrimination tasks, in which mental rotation was either experimentally controlled for or was not needed. To measure the degree of hemispheric asymmetry participants also completed a dichotic listening test. Although women were not less lateralised than men, both tasks consistently revealed that women were more susceptible to left-right confusion than men. However, only women with a significant right ear advantage in the dichotic listening test had more difficulties in LRC tasks than men. There was no sex difference in less lateralised participants. This finding suggests that the impact of functional verbal asymmetries on LRC is mediated by sex.
众多研究报告称，女性认为自己比男性更容易出现左右混淆的情况。实际上，一些研究还发现了行为任务中的性别差异。有人提出，女性在左右辨别方面存在更多困难，因为她们的大脑半球偏侧化程度低于男性，而较低的偏侧化程度可能会导致更多的左右混淆（LRC）。然而，那些报告女性存在更多左右混淆情况的研究受到了批评，因为所使用的任务涉及心理旋转，而心理旋转是一种男性通常更擅长的空间能力。在本研究中，34名右利手女性和31名右利手男性完成了两项行为左右辨别任务，其中一项任务对心理旋转进行了实验控制，另一项任务则无需心理旋转。为了测量半球不对称程度，参与者还完成了一项双耳分听测试。尽管女性的大脑半球偏侧化程度并不低于男性，但两项任务都一致显示，女性比男性更容易出现左右混淆。然而，只有在双耳分听测试中右耳优势明显的女性在左右混淆任务中比男性遇到更多困难。在大脑半球偏侧化程度较低的参与者中没有性别差异。这一发现表明，功能性语言不对称对左右混淆的影响是由性别介导的。
