National Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, China.
Psychol Sci. 2012 Mar;23(3):320-30. doi: 10.1177/0956797611427168. Epub 2012 Feb 17.
Studies have shown that female children, on average, consistently outperform male children in arithmetic. In the research reported here, 1,556 pupils (8 to 11 years of age) from urban and rural regions in the greater Beijing area completed 10 cognitive tasks. Results showed that girls outperformed boys in arithmetic tasks (i.e., simple subtraction, complex multiplication), as well as in numerosity-comparison, number-comparison, number-series-completion, choice reaction time, and word-rhyming tasks. Boys outperformed girls in a mental rotation task. Controlling for scores on the word-rhyming task eliminated gender differences in arithmetic, whereas controlling for scores on numerical-processing tasks (number comparison, numerosity estimation, numerosity comparison, and number-series completion) and general cognitive tasks (choice reaction time, Raven's Progressive Matrices, and mental rotation) did not. These results suggest that girls' advantage in arithmetic is likely due to their advantage in language processing.
研究表明，女童的算术平均成绩普遍优于男童。在本研究报告中，来自北京周边城乡地区的 1556 名 8 至 11 岁的学生完成了 10 项认知任务。结果表明，女童在算术任务（即简单减法、复杂乘法）以及数量比较、数字比较、数字序列完成、选择反应时间和单词押韵任务上的表现优于男童。男童在心理旋转任务上的表现优于女童。在控制单词押韵任务得分的情况下，性别差异在算术方面消失了，而在控制数字处理任务（数字比较、数量估计、数量比较和数字序列完成）和一般认知任务（选择反应时间、瑞文渐进矩阵和心理旋转）的得分的情况下，性别差异并没有消失。这些结果表明，女孩在算术方面的优势可能归因于她们在语言处理方面的优势。
