Sex differences in the cognitive effects of unilateral brain damage: comparison of stroke patients and normal control subjects.

Our original paper on the influence of the sex of the patients on the cognitive effects of unilateral brain damage mainly described the differences found between the various lesion groups (left/right, male/female) and said little about comparisons between these groups and our control subjects. Such comparisons are examined here; they confirm that the major sex differences after such brain damage appear in tasks intended to involve nonverbal processing. This evidence supports the hypothesis that women, to a greater extent than men, may employ verbal, left hemisphere processing to solve ostensibly nonverbal problems.