Vuoksimaa Eero, Viken Richard J, Hokkanen Laura, Tuulio-Henriksson Annamari, Rose Richard J, Kaprio Jaakko
Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Finland.
Twin Res Hum Genet. 2010 Oct;13(5):437-41. doi: 10.1375/twin.13.5.437.
Probably the most robust sex difference in cognitive abilities is that on average males outperform females in tests of mental rotation. Using twin data we tested whether there are sex differences in the magnitude of genetic and environmental effects on mental rotation test performance and whether the same or different genetic effects operate in females and males. The present study replicated the well-known male advantage in mental rotation ability. The relative proportion of variance explained by genetic effects did not differ between females and males, but interestingly, absolute additive genetic and unique environmental variances were greater in males reflecting significantly greater phenotypic variance in mental rotation test performance in males. Over half of the variance in mental rotation test performance was explained by genetic effects, which suggest that mental rotation ability is a good phenotype for studies finding genes underlying spatial abilities. Results indicate that females and males could be combined for such genetic studies, because the same genetic effects affected mental rotation test performance in females and males.
认知能力方面最显著的性别差异可能在于，平均而言，男性在心理旋转测试中的表现优于女性。利用双胞胎数据，我们测试了在心理旋转测试表现上，遗传和环境影响的程度是否存在性别差异，以及在女性和男性中起作用的遗传效应是否相同或不同。本研究重现了心理旋转能力方面众所周知的男性优势。遗传效应所解释的方差相对比例在女性和男性之间没有差异，但有趣的是，男性的绝对加性遗传方差和独特环境方差更大，这反映出男性在心理旋转测试表现上的表型方差显著更大。心理旋转测试表现中超过一半的方差由遗传效应解释，这表明心理旋转能力是寻找空间能力潜在基因研究的良好表型。结果表明，女性和男性可以合并用于此类遗传研究，因为相同的遗传效应影响了女性和男性的心理旋转测试表现。
