a Department of Biological and Medical Psychology , University of Bergen , Bergen , Norway.
b Department of Radiology , Haukeland University Hospital , Bergen , Norway.
Laterality. 2019 Mar;24(2):204-252. doi: 10.1080/1357650X.2018.1497044. Epub 2018 Jul 9.
According to a longstanding view, sex differences in cognitive abilities such as mental rotation or verbal memory arise from sex differences in hemispheric asymmetry: males are thought to be more lateralized than females which boosts their spatial but hampers their verbal skills. This idea sparked great interest and, even though it lost support in the 1990s, it is still put forward in contemporary (popular) scientific papers and textbooks. We aimed to provide a comprehensive review that summarizes the last 40 years of research. First, we confirm previous findings that the stronger hemispheric asymmetry in males is very small but robust. Second, we conclude that stronger hemispheric asymmetry, in general, does not enhance spatial and reduce verbal performance. Crucially, we carried out a systematic literature review showing that cognitive sex differences often emerge in the absence of sex differences in hemispheric asymmetry (and vice versa), implying the two phenomena are at least partly independent of each other. At present, there is insufficient data to conclude that sex differences in hemispheric asymmetry and cognitive performance are uncorrelated. However, we can conclude that sex differences in hemispheric asymmetry are certainly not the driving force behind sex differences in cognitive functioning.
根据长期以来的观点，认知能力（如心理旋转或言语记忆）方面的性别差异源于大脑半球不对称性方面的性别差异：男性比女性更具有侧化性，这提高了他们的空间能力，但阻碍了他们的言语技能。这个观点引起了极大的兴趣，尽管它在 20 世纪 90 年代失去了支持，但它仍然在当代（流行的）科学论文和教科书中被提出。我们旨在提供一个全面的综述，总结过去 40 年的研究。首先，我们证实了之前的发现，即男性更强的大脑半球不对称性非常小但很稳健。其次，我们得出结论，更强的大脑半球不对称性通常不会提高空间能力和降低言语表现。至关重要的是，我们进行了系统的文献综述，表明认知性别差异经常出现在大脑半球不对称性方面没有性别差异的情况下（反之亦然），这意味着这两种现象至少在一定程度上是相互独立的。目前，还没有足够的数据来得出结论，大脑半球不对称性和认知表现方面的性别差异是不相关的。然而，我们可以得出结论，大脑半球不对称性方面的性别差异肯定不是认知功能方面性别差异的驱动力。
