ГЛАВА 12 «ПОЛОВЫЕ ВОПРОСЫ И ПРЕЖДЕВРЕМЕННАЯ СПЕКУЛЯЦИЯ»
1 (Dana, 1915), para. 8.
2 (Russett, 1989), p. 191.
3 This section summarised from (Russett, 1989); quotation from p. 32. See also (Shields, 1975; Tavris, 1992).
4 (Hines, 2004), p. 6.
5 (Pease & Pease, 2008), p. 51.
6 Geoffrey Aguirre, quoted in (Lehrer, 2008), para. 17.
7 See (Weisberg, 2008) for an excellent overview.
8 See (Wallentin, 2009), also (Dietrich et al., 2001).
9 (Harrington & Farias, 2008; Ihnen et al., 2009; Kaiser et al., 2009). See also (Kriegeskorte et al., 2009; Vul et al., 2009) for arguments that reported correlations between brain activations and stimuli or social characteristics are sometimes biased or spurious due to invalid methods of analysis. Concern has also been expressed that the technology is being used in inappropriate ways. Neuroimaging expert Logothetis has recently complained that ‘[m]any of these [fMRI] papers are such oversimplifications of what’s happening in the brain as to be worthless’ and that ‘[t]oo many of these experiments are being done by people who, unfortunately, don’t really understand what the technology can and cannot do.’ (Quoted in [Lehrer, 2008], paras. 11 and 8, respectively.)
10 As Bleier points out, there was no a priori reason to suggest that greater lateralisation would be associated with superior visuospatial abilities. She also provides a good critique of the original corpus callosum data and interpretation (Bleier, 1986).
11 (Bleier, 1986), p. 154. Bleier provides an excellent and concise summary of the issues with the greater male lateralisation hypothesis and the inadequacy of the data for it. See also (Kaplan & Rogers, 1994).
12 (Sommer et al., 2004; Sommer et al., 2008), p. 1850 of 2004 paper. For the role of publication bias in the investigation of sex differences in language lateralisation, see also (Kaiser et al., 2009).
13 When Sommer and colleagues looked separately at the different types of dichotic listening tasks used, they found that one type of task, called the CV(C) task, did yield the expected sex difference. Interestingly, the CV(C) was used exclusively by researchers interested in sex difference issues. (In fact, generally, studies that were specifically interested in sex differences tended to find them, whereas studies that merely mentioned sex in passing tended not to.) Suspecting publication bias, they looked for evidence of sex differences in lateralisation in the CV(C) in a huge data set called the Bergen Dichotic Listening Database. This is an unpublished data set that is three times larger than all the CV(C) studies from the meta-analysis combined. There were no sex differences.
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14 (Mathews et al., 2004).
15 See (Wallentin, 2009).
16 The aphasia rate following right-hemisphere damage was 2 percent for men and 1 percent for women (D. Kimura, ‘Sex differences in cerebral organisation for speech and praxic functions’, Canadian Journal of Psychology 37 [1983], pp. 19–35), cited in (Sommer et al., 2004), p. 1849.
17 See (Hyde, 2005). Summarising the findings relating to language and communication from Hyde’s meta-analysis, Cameron writes, ‘[i]n almost every case, the overall difference made by gender is either small or close to zero. Two items, spelling accuracy and frequency of smiling, show a larger effect – but it is still only moderate, not large.’ (Cameron, 2007), p. 43. Wallentin also concludes his review as follows: ‘A small but consistent female advantage is found in early language development. But this seems to disappear during childhood. In adults, sex differences in verbal abilities, and in brain structure and function related to language processing are not readily identified.’ (Wallentin, 2009), p. 181. Wallentin later draws attention to the file-drawer problem for research into sex difference in language skills.
18 See Bleier’s discussion of the initial report in 1982 by De Lacoste-Utamsing and Holloway (C. De Lacoste-Utamsing & R. L. Holloway, ‘Sexual dimorphism in the human corpus callosum’, Science, 216 [1982]: 1413–1432) which was based on fourteen brains, of unknown age or cause of death, and obtained a result that did not reach statistical significance. Bleier also made the important points that it is not known whether the size of the corpus callosum is related to the number of fibres or whether the number of fibres is related to degree of lateralisation of hemispheric function or whether lateralisation of hemispheric function is related to visuospatial ability (Bleier, 1986).
19 (Fausto-Sterling, 2000), and (Bishop & Wahlsten, 1997), p. 581.
20 (Wallentin, 2009), p. 178.
21 For example, one study found similar lateralisation (right) activity in the superior parietal lobe in both men and women – with males outperforming females (Halari et al., 2006). Another found no sex difference in behaviour, and found that males showed more bilateral activation in the parietal lobe while females showed more right lateralisation in this region (Clements et al., 2006). Gur and colleagues, on the other hand, found increased right lateralisation in men, who outperformed women, in the inferior parietal region (Gur et al., 2000). Another study found no differences in performance and no differences in lateralisation (Dietrich et al., 2001). This study also found much greater brain activations in women during their high-oestrogen phase which hints at an interesting problem for gender difference research in this area. Other researchers matched male and female performance and found sex differences in activations (which didn’t clearly suggest greater lateralisation in either group) that they suggested were due to different strategies in women and men (Jordan et al., 2002). Another study found no gender difference in either performance on brain activations, but significant brain activation differences between good and poor performers on the task (Unterrainer et al., 2000).
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22 (Halpern et al., 2007), pp. 29 and 30.
23 (Baron-Cohen et al., 2005), p. 820, references removed.
24 Quoted in (Healy, 2006a), para. 14.
25 Quoted in (Healy, 2006b), para .22.
26 (Gurian & Stevens, 2004), p. 23.
27 (Pease & Pease, 2008), p. 110.
28 (Gray, 2008), see p. 39.
29 A point made by (Bleier, 1986).
ГЛАВА 13 «А ВООБЩЕ, ЧТО ВСЕ ЭТО ЗНАЧИТ?»
1 (Romanes, 1887/1987), p. 11, footnote removed.
2 (Fausto-Sterling, 1985), p. 260.
3 (De Vries, 2004), p. 1064.
4 An example of this, in the rat, is described by (Moore, 1995), p. 53.
5 (Moore, 1995), pp. 53 and 54. Similarly, Haier and colleagues have suggested that ‘different brain designs may manifest equivalent intellectual performance.’ (Haier et al., 2005), p. 320.
6 See (Im et al., 2008).
7 (Leonard et al., 2008), p. 2929.
8 (Im et al., 2008; Leonard et al., 2008). Leonard et al. quoted on p. 2929. Effects of sex were very small, or nonexistent, once effect of total brain volume was taken into account. Leonard et al.’s findings with regard to grey matter in proportion to total brain volume are consistent, too, with work by Luders and colleagues, who also conclude that ‘brain size is the main variable determining the proportion of grey matter.’ (Luders, Steinmetz, & Jancke, 2002), p. 2371. Im and colleagues also argue that their results show ‘that sex effects are mostly explained by brain size effects in the cortical structure of human brains.’ (Im et al., 2008), p. 2188.
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9 (Giedd et al., 2006), p. 159.
10 (Fine, 1990), p. 133.
11 (Baron-Cohen, Knickmeyer, & Belmonte, 2005), p. 821.
12 (Gur & Gur, 2007), p. 196.
13 Ian Gold, personal communication, October 24, 2008.
14 I am very grateful to Ian Gold, whose insights have greatly enhanced my understanding of the problems inherent in trying to relate brain structure to brain function.
15 (Halari et al., 2006), see pp. 1 and 3.
16 (Gur et al., 1999).
17 Quoted in (University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, 1999), para. 7.
18 (Gur et al., 1999), p. 4071. Regarding the point that correlation doesn’t mean causation, some third factor (or complex of factors), like education, could enhance both white matter volume and spatial ability.
19 (Gur & Gur, 2007), p. 196.
20 (Gur et al., 2000), p. 166.
21 (O’Boyle, 2005; O’Boyle et al., 2005; Singh & O’Boyle, 2004).
22 Again, this is an issue raised long ago by Ruth Bleier who pointed out the circularity of the reasoning that men are superior in visuospatial skills because they have right-hemisphere lateralisation for visuospatial processing, and that right-hemisphere lateralisation is superior for visuospatial processing because men are superior at visuospatial processing and they show right-hemisphere lateralisation (Bleier, 1986).
23 See (Russett, 1989; Shields, 1975).
24 H. Ellis, Man and Woman: A Study of Human Secondary Sexual Characteristics (London: Walter Scott, 1894), p. 28. Quoted in (Russett, 1989), pp. 184 and 185.
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25 (Pease & Pease, 2008), pp. 145 and 146, respectively. Illustrations appear on p. 145.
26 (Pease & Pease, 2008), p. 145.
27 The first study is C. M. McCormick, S. F. Witelson, and E. Kingstone, ‘Left-handedness in homosexual men and women: Neuroendocrine implications’, Psychoneuroendocrinology 15, no. 1 (1990), pp. 69–76. The second study is S. F. Witelson, ‘The brain connection: The corpus callosum is larger in left-handers’, Science 229, no. 4714 (1985), pp. 665–668.
28 (Hall et al., 2004). Although the Peases also describe the Witelson emotion study in the 1999 edition of their book, researchers often present their results before publication, which can take many years. I contacted Pease International in the hope that the Peases might be able to clarify to what research they are referring in this passage, but they were unable to assist.
29 (Pinker, 2008), p. 116.
30 In discussing these results, I focus on between-group comparisons between males and females, rather than within-group contrasts, on the basis of the argument made by Kaiser and colleagues that ‘[o]nly by comparing women and men directly with one another within one statistical test can significance be ensured.’ (Kaiser et al., 2009), p. 54.
31 (Hall et al., 2004), p. 223.
32 (Hall et al., 2004), p. 223.
33 (Bennett et al., 2009), p. S125.
34 See (Ihnen et al., 2009).
35 For discussions of the role of reverse inferences in understanding cognitive mechanisms, limitations and conditions in which they are more or less likely to be a valid form of inference, see (Poldrack, 2006; Poldrack & Wagner, 2004).
36 For example (Blakemore et al., 2007; Burnett et al., 2009; Haier et al., 1992).
37 (Bird et al., 2004), p. 925.
38 (Buracas, Fine, & Boynton, 2005).
39 (Friston & Price, 2001), p. 275.
40 (Lehrer, 2008), para. 7.
41 (Kaiser et al., 2009).
42 (Miller, 2008), p. 1413.
43 Men’s brains are, on average, about 8 to 10 percent larger than female brains. Beyond this, as Kaiser et al. have pointed out, results demonstrating sex differences in ‘a/symmetries between the left and right hemisphere in anatomy and function, the size of the corpus callosum, and the extent of defined brain areas … have never been both conclusive and unchallenged’ (Kaiser et al., 2009), p. 50, emphases in original, references removed. Also, as discussed in this chapter, what appear to be sex differences in brain structure may turn out to be differences between people with larger versus smaller brains. Nor does the existence of differences in the brain indicate their origins. One last point is the importance of not assuming that sex differences observed in the rat apply to humans. With these extremely important caveats in mind, a brief overview of research finding sex differences in brain anatomy, neurochemistry and function, and discussion of their potential importance in understanding clinical disorders, is provided in (Cahill, 2006).
44 (Weisberg, 2008), p. 56.
ГЛАВА 14 «НЕЙРО-ОБМАН»
1 (Gray, 2008), pp. 44 and 45, respectively.
2 (Gurian & Annis, 2008), p. 9.
3 (Gurian, 2003), p. 88.
4 (Gurian & Annis, 2008), p. 34.
5 (Gurian & Annis, 2008), p. 59, emphasis in original.
6 (Rogers, Zucca, & Vallortigara, 2004). Thanks to Lesley Rogers for alerting me to this study.
7 (Young & Balaban, 2006), p. 634.
8 http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003923.html, accessed on October 5, 2009.
9 The study cited is (Raingruber, 2001).
10 (Brizendine, 2007), p. 162.
11 (Hall, 1978; Hall, 1984; McClure, 2000).
12 (Brizendine, 2007), p. 162.
13 The study cited is (Oberman et al., 2005).
14 (Brizendine, 2007), p. 163.
15 The study cited is (Singer et al., 2004).
16 (Brizendine, 2007), p. 163.
17 The study cited is T. Iidaka, ‘fMRI study of age related differences in the medial temporal lobe responses to emotional faces’, Society for Neuroscience, New Orleans [sic, should be San Diego], 2001. The first author confirmed that the research presented at this conference was subsequently published in (Iidaka et al., 2002) and that, as in the published report, gender differences were not mentioned.
18 The study cited is (Zahn-Waxler, Klimes-Dougan, & Slattery, 2000), p. 458, emphasis in original.
19 (Brizendine, 2007), p. 163.
20 The study cited is (Singer et al., 2006).
21 (Brizendine, 2007), pp. 163 and 164. Note that the researchers actually interpret their empathy-related responses to the pain of another as being limited to the affective aspect of the pain response, rather than the sensory aspects of pain.
22 (Brizendine, 2007), p. 158. The citations are, in order discussed in current text: (Orzhekhovskaia, 2005); (Uddin et al., 2005); (Oberman et al., 2005); (Ohnishi et al., 2004); and L. M. Oberman, ‘There may be a difference in male and female mirror neuron functioning’, personal communication, 2005.
23 Lindsay M. Oberman, personal communication (with me), October 21, 2008.
24 (Brizendine, 2007), p. 210.
25 (Brizendine, 2007), pp. 188 and 189.
26 http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004926.html, accessed March 3, 2010.
27 Quoted in (Weil, 2008), para. 14.
28 (Sax, 2006), pp. 106 and 107 and p. 106, respectively. The study Sax bases this claim on is described on pp. 29 and 30 of his book Why Gender Matters.
29 See (Freese & Amaral, 2009).
30 The study cited is (Killgore, Oki, & Yurgelun-Todd, 2001).
31 Although negative emotions conveyed in faces can be contagious, the children were not asked to try to induce a particular mood, and it was not the purpose of the experimental design to induce negative emotion in the children.
32 Brain activity was measured in two small parts of the brain bilaterally, in the amygdala and a region of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. For further critique of Sax’s interpretation of this study, see Mark Liberman’s discussion at http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003284.html.
33 http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003284.html, accessed September 2, 2009.
34 Sax cites one other study as support for his claim that in women brain activity associated with negative affect is ‘mostly up in the cerebral cortex’ whereas in men it is ‘stuck down in the amygdala’ (Sax, 2006), p. 29. This study (Schneider et al., 2000), involving thirteen men and thirteen women, found increased activity in the right amygdala in males but not females during induced sadness (but similar left amygdala activity during induced sadness, and similar amygdala activation in both hemispheres during induced happiness). Gender differences in cortical activations during induced sadness and happiness are not discussed. Sax also cites two other studies as evidence that emotions are processed differently in the sexes. Although he does not claim that these studies support the hypothesis that negative emotional experience is more subcortical in males and cortical in females, for the sake of completeness it is worth noting that these studies do not offer support for this idea. The first study (Killgore & Yurgelun-Todd, 2001) did not involve emotional experience but looked at amygdala activity in seven men and six women as they looked at fearful or happy faces (compared with the control condition of looking at a small circle). It did not look at brain activations in cortical regions. Amygdala response while looking at fearful faces was similar in the two sexes. When looking at happy faces, amygdala activation was lateralised to the right in men but not women – a lateralisation difference, rather than a difference in the engagement of the amygdala per se. Second, Sax cites a meta-analysis of functional imaging studies of emotion (Wager et al., 2003) as evidence that emotions are processed differently in the sexes. However, the conclusions of this study are not consistent with the idea that emotional experience is more subcortical in males and more cortical in women. The authors tentatively summarise the gender differences from their analysis as follows: ‘Men tend to activate posterior sensory and association cortex, left inferior frontal cortex, and dorsal striatum more reliably than women, whereas women tend to activate medial frontal cortex, thalamus, and cerebellum more reliably’ (p. 528). Translation: Men [cortical, cortical, cortical, subcortical] versus Women [cortical, subcortical, subcortical].
35 (Bachelard & Power, 2008), para. 46.
36 (Sax, 2006), p. 102 (boys) and p. 104 (girls). The term ‘neurofallacy’ coined by (Racine et al., 2005). For details of hippocampus-cortex connections, take your pick from the articles in the 2000 Special Issue of the journal Hippocampus entitled ‘The nature of hippocampal-cortical interaction: Theoretical and experimental perspectives’.
37 See (Sax, 2006), pp. 100–101. Perhaps the most important reason that implications for maths education cannot be drawn from the cited neuroimaging study is that it did not involve maths, or even numbers. Rather, the task involved navigating out of a complex three-dimensional virtual maze. The control condition involved looking at a frozen shot of the maze and making key presses in response to flickering rectangles. We can immediately see that this study will not tell us anything about the parts of the brain involved in mathematical processing. Even if the debate concerned whether single-sex classrooms are necessary for lessons in virtual maze navigation, this study would not help us much. More male activity was seen in the left hippocampus while women showed greater activation in right prefrontal and parietal areas, but this is in the context of ‘great overlap’ between the sexes in which regions were activated (Grön et al., 2000), p. 405. It’s impossible to make useful inferences from these differences. What do we make of greater male activation of the left hippocampus given that the right was activated equally in the sexes? What is the significance of greater female activation of the superior parietal lobule on one side of the brain but not the other? It does not make sense to say that only females use the cerebral cortex and only males use the hippocampus while performing spatial navigation (and even less sense to make this claim for maths)! Moreover, we don’t know whether more activation means ‘better’. It could mean ‘less efficient’. Were the differences due to performance differences rather than sex per se? (The men were significantly faster at getting out of the maze.) What cognitive role are these regions playing in the performance of the task? We have no idea – which makes developing educational strategies on the basis of these findings impossible. Discussing a similar claim about sex differences in maths processing made by a commentator on the BBC’s ‘Today’ programme, the blogger known as Neurosceptic provides a useful explanation of some of the confusion behind such claims (see http://neuroskeptic.blogspot. com/2008/11/educational-neuro-nonsense-or-return-of.html, accessed on September 10, 2009).
38 http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004618.html, accessed December 9, 2009.
39 Quoted in (Garner, 2008), para. 7.
40 (Bruer, 1997), p. 4.
41 (Clarke, 1873).
42 (Lewontin, 2000), p. 208.
43 Quoted in (Garner, 2008), para. 3.
44 http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2008/11/educational-neuro-nonsense-or-return-of.html, accessed September 2, 2009.
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