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Sex differences in cognition

Sex differences in cognition refer to the empirically observed average disparities between biological males and females in specific mental abilities, including visuospatial processing, verbal fluency, mathematical reasoning, and memory, while general intelligence shows no substantial mean difference between the sexes.^[1]^[2] Males consistently outperform females on tasks involving mental rotation and spatial navigation, with effect sizes ranging from moderate to large, whereas females excel in verbal memory and perceptual speed.^[3]^[4] These patterns emerge early in development, persist across the lifespan into advanced age, and are replicated in meta-analyses controlling for cultural and educational factors.^[5]^[6] A key feature is the greater male variability hypothesis, whereby males exhibit wider distributions in cognitive performance, resulting in disproportionate male representation among both high achievers and those with intellectual impairments.^[7]^[8] This variability extends to related domains like risk-taking and creativity, supported by large-scale datasets from standardized testing and neuroimaging.^[9]^[10] Biological mechanisms, including sex-specific hormone influences such as prenatal testosterone and genetic factors on brain lateralization, provide causal explanations rooted in evolutionary adaptations for divergent reproductive roles—males favoring spatial-hunting skills and females emphasizing social-verbal competencies.^[11]^[12] Despite robust evidence from peer-reviewed syntheses, these findings encounter controversy, often downplayed in institutional narratives due to interpretive biases favoring environmental determinism over biological realism, though cross-cultural and longitudinal data affirm their stability and non-trivial magnitude.^[13]^[14]

Biological Foundations

Genetic and Hormonal Influences

Sex differences in cognition arise partly from genetic factors tied to sex chromosomes. The X chromosome harbors a disproportionate number of genes associated with cognitive function, including intelligence, with estimates suggesting it contains over 800 genes influencing brain development and neural processes.^[15] Males, possessing a single X chromosome (XY), exhibit greater variability in cognitive traits due to hemizygosity, lacking a second X to buffer deleterious alleles or average expression; this contributes to higher male representation at both tails of the intelligence distribution, such as in intellectual disability and high genius-level performance.^[16] Females (XX) benefit from X-inactivation mosaicism, which promotes cellular diversity and potentially greater cognitive stability, though it introduces variability through skewed inactivation patterns.^[17] Direct genetic effects independent of gonadal hormones are evidenced by models like the four core genotypes, which dissociate chromosomal sex (XX vs. XY) from gonadal sex in mice, revealing that XX brains show female-typical patterns even with testes, and vice versa, extending to human inferences on behaviors like aggression and spatial navigation.^[15] Human studies confirm X-linked loci contribute to sex differences in general cognitive ability, with greater male variance persisting across populations and measures, challenging purely environmental explanations.^[16] Y-chromosome genes, such as SRY, initiate cascades affecting dopamine regulation and risk-taking cognition, though their cognitive impacts are less mapped than X-linked effects.^[15] Hormonal influences, particularly prenatal androgens, exert organizing effects on cognitive dimorphism during critical developmental windows. Elevated prenatal testosterone exposure correlates with enhanced male-typical spatial abilities, such as mental rotation, as seen in digit ratio (2D:4D) proxies of androgen levels, where lower ratios (higher fetal T) predict better visuospatial performance in both sexes.^[18] Girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), exposed to atypical prenatal androgens, display masculinized spatial cognition and interests, outperforming typical females on rotation tasks while showing deficits in female-typical verbal fluency.^[19] Conversely, estrogens promote verbal and memory strengths in females, with menstrual cycle data indicating spatial performance declines during high-estrogen phases, mirroring sex differences.^[20] These effects are causal rather than associative, supported by animal models where androgen manipulation alters cognitive profiles enduring into adulthood, and human convergence from multiple methods (amniotic assays, endocrinopathies).^[19] While some twin studies find no direct T transfer impact on spatial gaps, broader meta-analyses affirm prenatal hormones' role in dimorphizing cognition, interacting with genetics for domain-specific outcomes like male advantages in systemizing tasks.^[4]^[21] Activating effects of circulating hormones in adulthood modulate these traits, with testosterone boosting spatial accuracy in males and females alike.^[22]

Brain Structure and Functional Differences

Males exhibit larger intracranial volumes by approximately 12% and total brain volumes by 10.8% compared to females, with Cohen's d effect sizes of 3.03 and 2.1, respectively, based on a meta-analysis of 126 MRI studies.^[23] These differences persist across age groups, though they are attenuated but not eliminated after correcting for body size.^[23] Males also show larger absolute gray matter volumes (9.4% greater, Cohen's d = 2.13) and white matter volumes (12.9% greater, Cohen's d = 2.06).^[23] At birth, after controlling for total brain volume, females display greater cortical gray matter volumes, while males have greater white matter volumes.^[24] Regionally, structural differences include larger volumes in males for subcortical structures such as the amygdala and hippocampus, as well as certain cortical areas like the cingulate gyrus, with females showing larger volumes in select frontal gyri and the thalamus.^[23] These patterns are evident from voxel-based morphometry across 16 studies, though data on white matter regions remain limited.^[23] Males also demonstrate greater cortical surface areas overall.^[25] In terms of functional connectivity, diffusion tensor imaging of the structural connectome in over 900 youths reveals that male brains exhibit stronger intrahemispheric connections, particularly in supratentorial regions including frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes, optimizing for perception-to-action processes potentially linked to spatial cognition.^[26] Conversely, female brains show enhanced interhemispheric connectivity, especially in frontal regions during adolescence, facilitating integration across hemispheres that may support social and memory-related functions.^[26] Resting-state functional connectivity differences are more pronounced than structural neuroanatomical variations, with sex effects evident in association networks.^[27] Additionally, females display higher local functional connectivity density in cortical and subcortical regions.^[28]

Evolutionary Perspectives

Sexual Selection and Adaptive Explanations

Sexual selection theory, originally articulated by Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man (1871), explains the evolution of traits that confer advantages in mating competition or mate choice, distinct from survival-oriented natural selection. Applied to human cognition, this framework posits that sex differences emerged because ancestral males and females faced divergent reproductive challenges: males competed intrasexually for access to females, favoring cognitive traits supporting aggression, risk-taking, and strategic navigation, while females exerted intersexual choice, selecting males displaying reliable indicators of genetic quality, such as problem-solving prowess or creative intelligence. These pressures could amplify cognitive dimorphisms beyond what division-of-labor adaptations alone would predict, as sexually selected traits often exhibit exaggeration, variability, and costliness.^[29]^[30] Empirical support includes greater male variance in general intelligence (g), with ratios of male-to-female standard deviations around 1.11-1.20 in large-scale IQ assessments, potentially arising from disruptive selection where extreme high (and low) cognitive outliers in males result from reproductive skew—successful high-ability males sire more offspring, while low-ability males reproduce less. This variability aligns with sexual selection models predicting heightened dispersion in the competitive sex, as observed in polygynous species where male reproductive success is uneven. Female preferences for intelligent mates further bolster this: cross-cultural surveys of over 10,000 participants across 37 cultures reveal women rating intelligence higher than men do in long-term partners, with effect sizes (d ≈ 0.40) indicating stronger choosiness tied to greater parental investment.^[31]^[32] Specific cognitive domains show adaptive signatures of sexual selection. Enhanced male spatial rotation abilities (d ≈ 0.57 meta-analytic average) may reflect selection for hunting or territorial defense, where accurate mental mapping conferred mating advantages via resource provision or status. Conversely, female advantages in verbal fluency and social cognition (d ≈ -0.33 for reading comprehension) could stem from selection for kin altruism and mate evaluation, enabling detection of deception or alliance-building—skills amplified if cognitively demanding social displays signaled fitness to choosers. Experimental evidence from nonhuman species reinforces direct links: female budgerigars prefer males solving complex tasks, and cognitive performance correlates with mating success in male guppies, suggesting analogous human dynamics where observable intelligence (e.g., humor, eloquence) functions as a costly signal.^[33]^[34]^[35] Critics contend that experiential factors or unselected genetic byproducts better explain these patterns, with some meta-analyses finding weak ties between spatial sex differences and ancestral role simulations. However, sexual selection hypotheses gain traction from phylogenetic comparative studies showing cognitive traits evolve faster under mate choice pressures, and human brain expansion (tripling in Homo over 2 million years) correlates more with social complexity and display opportunities than foraging demands alone. Integrating hormones like prenatal testosterone, which masculinize spatial biases and variance, provides a proximate mechanism linking ultimate sexual selection to cognitive outcomes. Despite debates, the framework's predictive power—differentiating domains like systemizing (male-biased) versus empathizing (female-biased)—outstrips null hypotheses assuming cognitive uniformity.^[36]^[37]^[38]

Prenatal and Developmental Mechanisms

Prenatal exposure to sex hormones, particularly androgens such as testosterone, plays a significant role in the sexual differentiation of the brain during critical developmental windows, influencing subsequent cognitive sex differences. In mammalian models, including humans, higher prenatal testosterone levels in males promote organizational effects on neural circuits, enhancing structures associated with spatial navigation and visuospatial processing while potentially attenuating those linked to verbal and social cognition.^[19] ^[39] For instance, studies measuring amniotic fluid testosterone in fetuses have correlated higher levels with enhanced mental rotation performance in girls at age 4, suggesting a causal pathway for male-typical spatial advantages, though results are inconsistent across broader spatial tasks.^[40] ^[4] From an evolutionary standpoint, these prenatal mechanisms are posited to reflect adaptations shaped by sexual selection and ancestral division of labor, where male-typical hormone profiles supported spatially demanding activities like hunting or territorial defense, fostering greater variability and mean advantages in spatial cognition. The evolved neuroandrogenic (ENA) theory argues that the evolutionary pressures on testosterone production, rather than direct genetic selection on cognition, underlie universal sex differences in domains such as spatial ability (males superior by ~0.5-1 standard deviation) and verbal fluency (females superior).^[12] ^[41] Evidence from congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), where females experience elevated prenatal androgens, shows improved spatial performance and rougher play, mimicking male patterns and supporting hormone-driven causality over socialization alone.^[42] Postnatally, developmental trajectories diverge, with boys exhibiting faster maturation in visuospatial networks and girls in language-related areas, observable from infancy via functional connectivity differences in resting-state fMRI.^[43] Males display greater volumetric brain growth rates from birth through early childhood, correlating with sustained spatial advantages into adulthood, while female brains show earlier peaking in verbal processing efficiency.^[24] ^[44] These patterns persist despite environmental equalization, implying enduring prenatal programming that aligns with evolutionary predictions of sex-specific cognitive optima for reproductive fitness.^[11] However, genetic factors interact with hormones, as twin studies indicate heritability contributes to sex differences in mental rotation, underscoring multifactorial origins.^[45]

General Cognitive Ability

Mean Differences in Overall Intelligence

Meta-analyses of standardized IQ tests administered to children, such as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), indicate negligible mean differences in full-scale IQ (FSIQ), with males showing a small advantage of approximately d = 0.09 (equivalent to 1.4 IQ points), though this effect diminishes to non-significance in newer test versions.^[14] Similarly, assessments of the g factor in school-aged samples reveal trivial or absent sex differences in general cognitive ability.^[14] In adults, evidence from culture-reduced tests like Raven's Progressive Matrices points to a male advantage emerging after adolescence. A meta-analysis of 57 studies found no mean difference in children aged 6–14 years but a consistent male superiority of d = 0.33 (about 5 IQ points) from age 15 through adulthood.^[46] On the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV), males scored higher on FSIQ by 2.25 points and on the General Ability Index by 4.05 points in a U.S. normative sample.^[47] This pattern aligns with a developmental theory positing parity in intelligence during childhood, followed by greater male gains in adolescence, potentially linked to pubertal hormonal changes and brain maturation differences.^[46] However, many comprehensive reviews of diverse batteries, including the Leiter-3, conclude no reliable overall sex difference in g, attributing variations to specific subdomains rather than general ability.^[1] Discrepancies may arise from test construction norms aiming for score equivalence or sample biases, though un-normed measures like Raven's suggest the male edge persists in fluid reasoning, a core g component.^[46]^[1]

Variability and Distributional Differences

Studies of general intelligence, often measured via IQ tests, have consistently found that males display greater variability than females, with male standard deviations approximately 10-15% larger. This pattern, known as the greater male variability hypothesis, results in a higher proportion of males at both the upper and lower tails of the distribution, despite negligible mean differences. For instance, analyses of large-scale mental test data from the 20th century revealed that male variance exceeded female variance across multiple cognitive domains, leading to more high-scoring males in standardized assessments.^[48] Similar results emerge from population-wide surveys of Scottish schoolchildren, where male distributions showed elevated variability even after accounting for non-normal elements like excess low-end scores linked to intellectual disability.^[49] Meta-analyses of variance ratios (VR = male SD / female SD) in cognitive performance further substantiate this for general ability factors. In assessments like the Wechsler Intelligence Scales, males exhibit VRs significantly greater than 1 in broad domains such as visual processing and crystallized intelligence, which contribute to overall g, while processing speed shows the reverse.^[31] Across international large-scale assessments (e.g., PISA), male variances are on average 12-15% larger in mathematics and science, domains correlated with general intelligence, with patterns holding even after controlling for national factors.^[50] These distributional differences persist into adulthood and explain phenomena like male overrepresentation among Nobel laureates in sciences (where extreme high ability is required) and in intellectual disability diagnoses.^[48]^[51] Developmentally, variability patterns evolve: in early childhood (ages 2-4), females may predominate at high ends and males at low, but by age 10 and beyond, male greater variability becomes evident, aligning with adult distributions.^[52] Critics have questioned the hypothesis due to inconsistencies in specific subdomains or potential cultural influences, yet robust evidence from standardized, normed tests across diverse samples supports its validity for general cognitive ability, independent of mean shifts.^[7] This variability is not fully explained by X-chromosome effects or socialization, pointing to biological factors like prenatal testosterone exposure influencing dispersion.^[9]

Specific Cognitive Domains

Spatial Abilities

Males consistently outperform females on measures of spatial abilities, particularly in tasks involving mental rotation and spatial perception, with meta-analyses reporting moderate to large effect sizes. A comprehensive meta-analysis of 286 effect sizes across various spatial tests found a male advantage of d = 0.73 for mental rotation tasks, d = 0.44 for spatial perception (judging orientation despite visual cues), and a smaller d = 0.13 for spatial visualization (manipulating flat representations into 3D forms).^[53] These differences hold across age groups and persist even among experts in STEM fields, where males maintain advantages in small-scale spatial tasks like mental rotation and paper folding.^[54] The male advantage in mental rotation—the ability to visualize and rotate 3D objects mentally—emerges early in development and is evident by elementary school age. A meta-analysis of 128 studies involving over 30,000 children revealed significant gender gaps in spatial reasoning starting around age 4–5, with boys outperforming girls on tasks requiring multi-dimensional object manipulation, and these disparities widening through adolescence.^[55] Effect sizes for mental rotation in children under 13 are smaller (d ≈ 0.33) but increase to d ≈ 0.56–0.73 in adults, suggesting maturation amplifies innate differences rather than solely environmental factors.^[56] Large-scale navigation skills, such as route learning and wayfinding, show a smaller but reliable male edge (d ≈ 0.2–0.4), consistent across paradigms like virtual reality and real-world tests.^[57] Biological factors, including prenatal testosterone exposure, correlate with enhanced spatial performance in males, as evidenced by studies linking higher 2D:4D digit ratios (a proxy for androgen exposure) to better mental rotation scores.^[58] These patterns remain robust across cultures and socioeconomic groups, undermining socialization-only explanations, though training can narrow gaps modestly in females without eliminating them.^[59] Variability within sexes is greater in males, leading to more extreme high performers on spatial tasks, which may contribute to overrepresentation in fields like engineering.^[31]

Verbal and Language Abilities

Females exhibit a small average advantage over males in several aspects of verbal and language abilities, with effect sizes typically ranging from d = 0.11 to 0.33 across meta-analyses of diverse populations and age groups.^[60]^[61] This includes superior performance in verbal fluency tasks, where females generate more words in phonemic fluency (e.g., words starting with a specific letter, d = 0.12–0.13) but show negligible differences in semantic fluency (e.g., words within a category, d = 0.01–0.02).^[61]^[62] Vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension also favor females modestly, with meta-analytic evidence from standardized tests like the Wechsler scales confirming consistent, though small, female superiority persisting from childhood through adulthood.^[63]^[64] These differences emerge early in development; for instance, female newborns display stronger functional connectivity in superior temporal gyri networks implicated in basic language processing, as measured by resting-state fMRI.^[65] In children, girls show greater neural activation in language areas during tasks involving speech perception and production, independent of stimulus modality or age within pediatric samples.^[66] However, large-scale organization of language lateralization remains strongly left-hemispheric in both sexes, with no substantive sex differences in overall hemispheric dominance based on fMRI and lesion studies.^[67] White matter pathways supporting language, such as those in the arcuate fasciculus, exhibit sex-specific variations in microstructure, potentially contributing to processing efficiency differences.^[68] Subdomain-specific patterns reveal nuances; females outperform in verbal episodic memory tasks like word list recall (d ≈ 0.20–0.30), but advantages may be attenuated in tasks requiring abstract verbal reasoning or speeded production when strategies are controlled.^[61]^[69] Males occasionally show parity or slight edges in semantic fluency under certain instructions, though overall evidence supports a female-leaning profile across fluency types when publication bias is accounted for.^[70] Longitudinal data indicate these gaps are stable over the lifespan, with minimal convergence in older age despite cognitive declines affecting both sexes.^[71] Effect sizes remain small relative to within-sex variability, and differences hold across cultures with varying educational emphases, suggesting a partial biological basis alongside socialization influences.^[2]^[72]

Memory Subtypes

Females demonstrate a consistent advantage in episodic memory tasks, with a meta-analysis of over 1.6 million participants across 536 studies reporting an overall effect size of g = 0.19 favoring females, equivalent to women recalling approximately 12% more information than men on average.^[73] This advantage persists across age groups and is particularly pronounced for verbal materials such as words, stories, and faces, but diminishes or reverses for spatial or abstract stimuli.^[74] A separate meta-analysis confirmed female superiority in verbal-episodic memory tasks, with effect sizes ranging from d = 0.21 to 0.33, attributing the pattern to stronger encoding of contextual and emotional details by females.^[75] In working memory, differences vary by modality. Females outperform males in verbal working memory tasks, as evidenced by systematic reviews showing small to moderate advantages in tasks like digit span and letter-number sequencing, potentially linked to superior phonological processing.^[76] Conversely, males exhibit advantages in visuospatial working memory, with a meta-analysis of 57 studies yielding a male-favoring effect size of d = 0.25, reflecting better maintenance of spatial configurations such as object locations or mental rotations.^[77] These modality-specific patterns align with broader sex differences in verbal versus spatial cognition, though overall working memory capacity shows minimal sex differences when aggregated across domains.^[31] Semantic memory, involving factual knowledge retrieval, displays negligible sex differences. Meta-analytic evidence indicates no reliable advantage in semantic fluency tasks (e.g., category naming), with effect sizes near zero (d ≈ 0.01–0.02), suggesting comparable long-term storage and access of general knowledge across sexes.^[61] Procedural memory, the implicit learning of skills like motor sequences, has received less empirical scrutiny but shows inconsistent or absent sex differences in laboratory paradigms, such as serial reaction time tasks, with any variations often attributable to task-specific demands rather than inherent cognitive disparities.^[78] Prospective memory, the ability to remember future intentions, reveals a small female advantage in event-based tasks (e.g., recalling to perform an action upon a cue), with effect sizes around d = 0.14–0.20, potentially tied to enhanced monitoring of social or verbal cues, though time-based variants (e.g., clock-checking) show no consistent differences.^[73] Across subtypes, effect sizes are typically small (d < 0.30), stable from adolescence onward, and robust to publication bias corrections, underscoring biological underpinnings over cultural artifacts, though environmental factors like education may modulate expressions in specific populations.^[31]^[79]

Executive Functions and Inhibition

A meta-analysis of simple delay inhibition tasks in early childhood, encompassing 25 studies and over 3,000 participants aged 2–6 years, found that girls outperformed boys with a small effect size (Hedges' g = 0.25–0.26), particularly on tasks requiring sustained suppression of immediate rewards. This advantage aligns with behavioral observations in preschoolers, where girls demonstrate greater resistance to temptation in paradigms like the marshmallow test variants, though effect sizes remain modest and task-dependent.^[80] In response inhibition tasks, such as the stop-signal paradigm, adult males typically exhibit faster inhibition latencies, with mean differences of approximately 20–50 ms in reaction time suppression, attributed to quicker motor response thresholds.^[81] Conversely, neuroimaging studies reveal that females recruit greater activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus and pre-supplementary motor area during successful inhibition, compensating for equivalent or slightly slower behavioral performance and suggesting sex-specific neural efficiency trade-offs.^[81] A systematic review of functional neuroimaging from 1990 to 2020 corroborated these patterns, noting consistent female hyperactivation in frontostriatal networks across 15 studies, even when behavioral outcomes showed no group differences.^[82] Broader meta-analyses of executive control domains, including inhibition (e.g., Go/No-Go and Stroop tasks), indicate small overall sex differences (Cohen's d < 0.20), with females showing slight edges in interference resolution for verbal stimuli and males in visuospatial conflict tasks.^[83] These effects persist longitudinally; a 2025 study of octogenarians confirmed enduring female advantages in inhibitory aspects of executive function, alongside verbal memory, based on longitudinal data from over 1,000 participants tracked for decades.^[5] Developmental reviews spanning infancy to adolescence highlight more similarities than differences, with inconsistencies arising from task purity—pure inhibition measures yield negligible effects (d ≈ 0.10), while hybrid tasks confound results with attention or working memory demands.^[84] Acute stress modulates these patterns, enhancing inhibitory control via event-related potentials (e.g., larger N2 and P3 components) more pronouncedly in females, as evidenced in a 2023 ERP study of 60 undergraduates, where stressed females reduced error rates by 15–20% more than males on Go/No-Go trials.^[85] Such findings underscore context-dependent sex effects, potentially linked to estrogen-mediated dopaminergic modulation, though causal mechanisms require further causal inference from hormone intervention trials. Overall, while differences are statistically detectable, their practical magnitude is small, and individual variability exceeds group effects in most samples.^[86]^[84]

Processing Speed and Attention

Males demonstrate faster mean simple reaction times than females across the lifespan in empirical studies of basic sensory-motor tasks, with effect sizes typically small to moderate (d ≈ 0.2-0.5).^[87]^[88] This advantage persists in both visual and auditory stimuli, as shown in comparative analyses where males' response latencies were significantly shorter (P < 0.001).^[89] In contrast, females outperform males in more complex processing speed tasks, such as rapid automatized naming, digit-symbol substitution, and visual search or coding exercises, often measured via subtests like the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) Processing Speed Index.^[90]^[91] Meta-analytic evidence supports female superiority in processing speed factors involving perceptual discrimination and fluency, with standardized mean differences favoring females (g ≈ 0.1-0.3) in datasets spanning decades of intelligence testing.^[92]^[31] These patterns hold after controlling for age and education, suggesting underlying neurological or physiological factors rather than purely experiential ones, as simple reaction time differences align more closely with neural conduction velocity variations between sexes.^[93] Males, however, show lower intraindividual variability in reaction times during adulthood, potentially contributing to more consistent performance under speed pressure.^[87] Regarding attention, females exhibit advantages in tasks requiring sustained focus, inhibition control, and divided attention, such as go/no-go paradigms or continuous performance tests, with meta-analyses indicating small female-favoring effects in attentional selectivity (d ≈ 0.15-0.25).^[1] This is evident in planning-attention frameworks like the PASS model (Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, Successive), where females score higher on attention subscales linked to achievement outcomes.^[94] Electrophysiological studies, including EEG during cognitive processing, reveal sex-specific patterns in attentional allocation, with females showing enhanced P300 event-related potentials indicative of superior orienting to relevant stimuli.^[95] Males may excel in visuospatial attention shifts, but overall, attentional differences are task-dependent and smaller than those in spatial domains, with no consistent sex gap in basic vigilance.^[1] These findings emerge reliably in large-scale reviews, though effect sizes diminish when samples include clinical populations like ADHD, where baseline deficits interact with sex.^[96] Females consistently outperform males on self-reported measures of affective empathy, with meta-analyses showing moderate effect sizes (d ≈ 0.3–0.5), whereas cognitive empathy differences are smaller or negligible.^[97] This distinction aligns with empathy's dual components: affective empathy involves emotional sharing, where females report greater responsiveness to others' distress, while cognitive empathy entails perspective-taking, showing minimal sex differences in objective tasks.^[98] For instance, a 2021 study using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index found females scoring higher on empathic concern and personal distress subscales, but no group differences in perspective-taking.^[97] In behavioral assessments of social cognition, such as emotion recognition from facial cues, females demonstrate a small advantage, as evidenced by a 2014 meta-analysis of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), where adult females exceeded males with an effect size of d = 0.16, suggesting better inference of mental states from eye regions.^[99] Theory of mind (ToM) tasks, which probe understanding of others' beliefs and intentions, yield mixed results; a 2022 cross-national analysis across 57 countries reported an average female advantage in explicit ToM measures (d ≈ 0.1–0.2), though this was absent in implicit or advanced ToM paradigms.^[100] Conversely, a 2023 study integrating empathy, compassion, and ToM found no sex differences in ToM performance but confirmed higher female scores in empathy and prosocial donation behaviors.^[101] Neural correlates support these patterns, with females exhibiting greater activation in the anterior insula during empathy tasks, a region linked to trait empathy differences observed in a 2022 fMRI study (d = 0.37 for females).^[102] However, early fMRI meta-analyses detected no overall sex differences in empathy network responses to pain stimuli, indicating that behavioral disparities may not uniformly translate to brain activity.^[103] Effect sizes remain small across domains, and self-report instruments, prone to social desirability biases, inflate reported differences compared to performance-based tests.^[104] Cross-domain integration reveals females' edge in interpersonal sensitivity, as in emotional intelligence subscales measuring social awareness, where empirical studies report female superiority (d ≈ 0.2–0.4), though males sometimes match or exceed in stress management facets.^[105] These patterns persist into adulthood but may attenuate with age, per longitudinal data showing stable yet diminishing gaps.^[106] While socialization influences expression, twin studies attribute 20–40% of variance in empathy traits to genetic factors, with prenatal testosterone implicated in reducing affective responsiveness in males.^[107] Academic sources, often emphasizing environmental explanations, underplay biological contributors despite converging evidence from endocrinology and neuroimaging.^[12]

Environmental and Cultural Influences

Socialization and Stereotype Effects

Sex differences in cognitive abilities have been attributed by some researchers to socialization processes, whereby differential parental expectations, educational practices, and cultural norms encourage distinct skill development in males and females from an early age. For instance, parents may provide boys with more opportunities for spatial play, such as construction toys, while steering girls toward verbal or social activities, potentially amplifying domain-specific abilities over time. However, longitudinal studies indicate that such effects are modest and do not fully explain observed differences, as interventions aimed at equalizing play experiences yield limited changes in cognitive outcomes.^[108] Empirical evidence challenges the primacy of socialization, revealing that certain cognitive sex differences manifest in infancy, before substantial environmental influences. Male infants demonstrate superior mental rotation performance compared to female infants as young as 3 to 5 months old, a disparity mirroring adult patterns in visuospatial cognition. Similarly, reviews of early infancy data document reliable sex differences in sensory processing, attention allocation, and basic cognitive tasks, such as object recognition and habituation rates, which precede differentiated rearing practices. These findings suggest innate predispositions that socialization may modulate but not originate.^[109]^[110] Stereotype threat, the phenomenon where awareness of negative group stereotypes impairs performance, has been invoked to explain performance gaps in stereotyped domains like mathematics and spatial reasoning. Meta-analyses of experimental studies report that inducing gender stereotype threat reduces girls' and women's scores on math, science, and spatial tasks, with an average effect size of approximately d = 0.27, indicating a small to moderate impact. Yet, these effects are inconsistent across replications, often fail to generalize beyond laboratory settings, and explain only a fraction of baseline sex differences, as gaps persist in low-threat environments and among high-achievers.^[111]^[112] Comprehensive reviews highlight methodological issues, including demand characteristics and selective reporting, which inflate perceived threat effects, while real-world interventions countering stereotypes show negligible long-term closure of cognitive disparities.^[113] Overall, while socialization and stereotype mechanisms contribute marginal variance—potentially exacerbating differences through feedback loops—their explanatory power is constrained by the early, robust emergence of sex-typed patterns and their stability across diverse rearing contexts. Biological factors, such as prenatal hormone exposure, better account for the core variances, with environmental influences acting as secondary amplifiers rather than primary causes.^[2]

Cross-Cultural Comparisons

Cross-cultural studies indicate that sex differences in specific cognitive domains, such as spatial rotation and mental navigation, exhibit considerable consistency across diverse societies, supporting a biological basis over purely cultural explanations. A meta-analysis of mental rotation performance in samples from North America, Western Europe, and East Asia found robust male advantages (d ≈ 0.5–0.7) persisting after controlling for experience and education, with similar effect sizes in industrialized and non-industrialized groups.^[114] Similarly, data from an international survey spanning 40 countries revealed male superiority in spatial competencies aligned with evolutionary predictions from hunter-gatherer foraging patterns, with effect sizes varying minimally by cultural modernity (e.g., d = 0.56 for 3D rotation tasks).^[115] These patterns hold in non-Western contexts, including Himalayan trekkers and Inuit populations, where males outperformed females on visuospatial tasks despite differing environmental demands.^[116] In verbal and social cognition, female advantages also demonstrate cross-cultural stability. An analysis of theory of mind tasks, including the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, across 57 countries (N > 300,000) identified consistent female superiority (d ≈ 0.2–0.3), uncorrelated with national gender equality indices or economic development, suggesting innate rather than socialization-driven origins.^[100] Verbal fluency differences, with females excelling in rapid word generation, appear in samples from Europe, Asia, and Africa, though magnitudes can attenuate in highly literate societies.^[117] International assessments like PISA and TIMSS further corroborate domain-specific patterns: in mathematics (tied to spatial reasoning), boys show slight average advantages (d ≈ 0.1–0.2) in over 60 countries, alongside greater male variability leading to overrepresentation at high and low extremes.^[118] Reading tasks, conversely, yield female edges (d ≈ 0.2) globally, with minimal cultural moderation.^[119] Challenges to universality exist, particularly for navigation skills in small-scale, subsistence societies. A 2024 review of studies in nomadic herders and foragers (e.g., Tsimane in Bolivia) found absent or reversed sex differences in wayfinding, attributing this to ecologically driven expertise rather than inherent deficits, though sample sizes were small (N < 100 per group) and tasks ecologically valid but not standardized.^[120] Overall, a meta-analysis of 189 intelligence studies spanning multiple cultures confirmed that while average IQ shows no sex difference, specific ability profiles (male spatial, female verbal/memory) generalize across Western, Asian, and developing contexts, with effect sizes stable over decades.^[121] These findings underscore that cultural factors modulate but do not eliminate innate sex differences, as evidenced by persistence in gender-egalitarian nations like Sweden and Iceland.^[57]

Controversies and Debates

Nature Versus Nurture Interpretations

The nature versus nurture debate concerning sex differences in cognition centers on whether observed disparities, such as greater male variance in general intelligence and advantages in spatial rotation alongside female edges in verbal fluency and episodic memory, arise primarily from biological mechanisms or environmental influences. Proponents of a strong nature position emphasize genetic and hormonal factors, noting that cognitive traits exhibit high heritability estimates averaging 50-66% across development, with sex-specific genetic architectures evident in twin studies of older adults where males show stronger genetic influences on processing speed and females on memory. Prenatal androgen exposure, proxied by digit ratios or direct measures in congenital adrenal hyperplasia cases, correlates with enhanced spatial abilities in females, supporting organizational effects of hormones on brain lateralization and connectivity that manifest early and persist independently of postnatal socialization. Animal models further bolster this, as sex differences in spatial navigation emerge in rodents via analogous hormonal pathways, independent of rearing conditions.^[122]^[123]^[124] Evidence against a predominant nurture explanation includes the cross-cultural stability of core differences: meta-analyses confirm consistent male advantages in spatial visualization (effect size d ≈ 0.5-0.7) and mental rotation across diverse societies, including non-Western samples, with no substantial narrowing in gender-egalitarian nations like those in Scandinavia, challenging socialization hypotheses that predict convergence under equal opportunities. Verbal and memory advantages for females likewise hold in childhood assessments predating extensive cultural inputs, and greater male variability in IQ—yielding more males at extremes—persists globally, as documented in quantitative reviews spanning verbal, mathematical, and spatial domains. While some studies report spatial gap reductions in matrilineal versus patrilineal groups, these are limited to specific tasks like puzzle-solving time and contradicted by broader data showing no overall elimination of differences, suggesting cultural factors may modulate but not originate disparities.^[125]^[126]^[127]^[128] Interpretations favoring nature align with causal realism, as first-principles reasoning from evolutionary selection pressures—males facing mate competition favoring spatial hunting skills, females verbal/social aptitudes for kin care—predicts dimorphism reinforced by X-chromosome dosage and Y-linked genes influencing variance. Nurture advocates, often from social psychology, invoke stereotype threat or differential toy exposure, yet interventions like spatial training yield temporary individual gains without closing population gaps, and adoption studies reveal minimal environmental equalization of cognitive profiles between sexes. Recent genomic analyses, including polygenic scores, indicate sex-differentiated heritability for traits like empathy and executive function, underscoring that while gene-environment interactions exist, innate predispositions predominate, with academic reluctance to emphasize biology potentially stemming from ideological biases prioritizing malleability over fixed differences.^[129]^[130]^[63]

Methodological Challenges and Research Biases

Research on sex differences in cognition faces several methodological hurdles, including small effect sizes that necessitate large sample sizes for reliable detection, greater intrasex variability among males which can obscure mean differences in underpowered studies, and task-specific dependencies where outcomes vary by test format or context.^[131] ^[7] Heterogeneity arises from non-representative samples, often limited to specific ages, cultures, or clinical populations, complicating generalizability across diverse groups.^[14] Confounding variables such as socioeconomic status or education are frequently inadequately controlled, potentially inflating or masking biological signals.^[131] Publication and reporting biases further complicate the literature, with neuroimaging studies of sex differences in brain function—often linked to cognition—exhibiting implausibly high rates of positive findings (88% in a review of 179 fMRI papers from 2004–2013) despite median sample sizes of only 32 participants, suggesting selective reporting of significant foci without correlation to study power.^[132] While some meta-analyses on intelligence tests detect no overall publication bias via methods like PET-PEESE, high heterogeneity (e.g., I² > 55% for full-scale IQ) indicates unresolved moderators such as test version or age, potentially from selective inclusion of studies favoring null results.^[14] In cognitive domains like verbal fluency, small female advantages appear partly inflated by publication bias favoring positive effects.^[61] Ideological biases, predominantly from feminist influences in academic psychology, systematically favor interpretations emphasizing similarity over difference, socialization over biology, and malleability over innateness in cognitive abilities.^[133] This manifests in downplaying evidence for male advantages in spatial or mathematical cognition, promoting hypotheses like gender similarities despite contrary meta-analytic data, and greater scrutiny of findings that favor males, as public and academic reactions show reduced acceptance of such results due to perceived threats to equality narratives.^[133] ^[134] Textbooks and journals often omit or minimize sex differences in personality and cognition, with only 5 of 7 introductory texts acknowledging them while stressing environmental malleability.^[133] The greater male variability hypothesis, supported in cognitive traits like intelligence and spatial ability, poses additional challenges, as standard mean-comparison designs fail to capture variance differences without massive samples (e.g., millions in PISA data for math/reading), leading to under-detection and interpretive errors that attribute male overrepresentation at extremes to social factors rather than biology.^[135] ^[7] Researcher expectancy effects and conflation of sex (biological) with gender (social) further bias outcomes, with alpha biases exaggerating differences in some contexts and beta biases minimizing them in others, often aligned with prevailing egalitarian ideologies.^[131] These issues underscore the need for preregistration, replication, and diverse funding to counter systemic tendencies toward null or environmentally attributed findings.^[134]

Recent Empirical Developments

Findings from Post-2020 Meta-Analyses and Longitudinal Studies

A 2025 meta-analysis of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) scores among 2,907 children with specific learning disabilities found no significant sex difference in full-scale IQ (d = -0.051), but identified domain-specific disparities: males outperformed females in crystallized intelligence (d = 0.18), visual processing (d = 0.27), and quantitative knowledge (d = 0.19), while females exceeded males in processing speed (d = -0.37) and short-term memory (d = -0.08).^[136] These results align with broader patterns in non-clinical samples, where visuospatial and mathematical reasoning favor males, and verbal fluency or speed-related tasks favor females, though effect sizes remain small to moderate.^[63] A 2024 meta-analysis of the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT), assessing analytical reasoning over intuitive responses, reported males scoring higher than females across 28 studies, with a corrected effect size of δ = 0.47 for numerical CRT variants—indicating a small but consistent male advantage moderated by task type rather than item length or cultural factors.^[137] This parallels findings in operational cognition, such as a 2024 analysis of aviation pilot candidates where males demonstrated superior mental spatial ability, abstract problem-solving, and multitasking (medium to large effects), contrasted with female advantages in perceptual speed.^[63] Longitudinal human studies post-2020 underscore the persistence and trajectories of these differences into adulthood and senescence. A 2021 analysis of 26,088 U.S. adults from five cohorts (1971–2017) revealed females outperforming males at baseline in global cognition (mean difference 2.20 points), executive function (2.13 points), and memory (1.89 points), yet experiencing steeper annual declines in global cognition (-0.07 points/year) and executive function (-0.06 points/year), with no divergence in memory decline.^[138] Such patterns suggest potential cognitive reserve in females that depletes faster under aging pressures, corroborated by 2025 evidence of enduring sex differences in memory and executive function among octogenarians.^[5] These developments highlight stability in sex-differentiated cognitive profiles despite methodological refinements, with meta-analytic syntheses mitigating sampling biases in individual studies and longitudinal designs capturing dynamic changes over time.^[63]^[138] However, variability in effect sizes across populations underscores the need for larger, diverse cohorts to disentangle biological from experiential contributors.^[137]

Implications for Aging, Disease, and Policy

Sex differences in cognitive trajectories during aging have implications for preventive strategies and healthcare resource allocation. Longitudinal studies indicate that while women often exhibit greater cognitive reserve in midlife, they experience faster declines in global cognition and executive function compared to men, particularly after age 65.^[138] ^[139] This pattern persists into the ninth decade, with women outperforming men in memory and executive tasks but showing steeper declines in the context of pathological aging.^[140] ^[141] Such findings underscore the need for sex-specific monitoring protocols in geriatric care, as women's verbal memory strengths may delay detection of impairment, leading to later interventions.^[142] In neurodegenerative diseases, sex differences influence disease progression and management. For Alzheimer's disease (AD), women are diagnosed later than men but exhibit more rapid cognitive decline post-diagnosis, with lower resilience to tau pathology contributing to steeper memory loss.^[143] ^[141] ^[144] However, differences in healthy brain aging do not fully account for women's higher AD prevalence, suggesting vascular, hormonal, or genetic factors warrant targeted investigation.^[145] In Parkinson's disease (PD), men face greater risks of executive dysfunction and processing speed deficits, with male sex accelerating cognitive decline in glucocerebrosidase (GBA1)-associated subtypes.^[146] ^[147] Women, conversely, progress more slowly toward cognitive impairment, highlighting potential benefits of sex-tailored neuroprotective therapies, such as hormone modulation or lifestyle interventions that leverage women's activity-cognition associations.^[148] ^[149] These empirical patterns inform policy by advocating for sex-disaggregated data in clinical trials and public health guidelines to avoid one-size-fits-all approaches that may exacerbate disparities. For instance, policies promoting modifiable factors like physical activity could prioritize women for cognitive maintenance programs, given stronger links to executive function preservation.^[149] ^[150] In disease contexts, funding allocations should emphasize research into sex-specific biomarkers for earlier AD detection in women and executive training for men with PD.^[143] ^[147] Broader policy considerations, drawn from cognitive ability differences, caution against interventions ignoring innate variances, such as standardized testing reforms that overlook spatial-verbal disparities in aging workforces.^[151] Overall, integrating these findings into evidence-based frameworks could optimize outcomes in aging populations and reduce disease burdens through precision public health.

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Aug 5, 2025 · This study used some of the data from the BBC Internet study to assess the universality of sex related spatial competencies, ...
[116]
[PDF] Sex Differences in Spatial Abilities: Evolutionary Theory and Data
The near universality of sex differences in spatial abilities across human cultures and their occurrence in other species indicate the feasibility of an ...
[117]
Sex differences and cross-cultural studies. - APA PsycNet
Research into whether women have superior verbal ability is problematic. The existence of universal sex differences has not yet been determined. (PsycINFO ...Missing: across | Show results with:across
[118]
[PDF] Global Sex Differences in Test Score Variability - Gwern.net
Nov 28, 2008 · Do boys and girls differ in their intel- lectual and cognitive abilities and, if so, in what way? These questions.
[119]
New Trends in Gender and Mathematics Performance: A Meta ...
In this paper, we use meta-analysis to analyze gender differences in recent studies of mathematics performance.
[120]
Still little evidence sex differences in spatial navigation are ...
Jan 17, 2024 · Recent evidence in subsistence populations strongly suggests that sex difference in spatial navigation in humans is not a cultural universal.
[121]
Cross-cultural comparison of sex-related differences on intelligence ...
Examined cross-cultural generalizability of the relation between sex and intelligence by means of a meta-analysis of 189 studies. The significance and the ...
[122]
Sex Differences After All Those Years? Heritability of Cognitive ...
May 1, 2006 · Abstract. We investigated sex differences in genetic and environmental effects on cognitive abilities among older adult twins.
[123]
The genetics of specific cognitive abilities - ScienceDirect.com
The heritability of g is about 50% (Knopik et al., 2017) and the average heritability of SCA from our meta-analysis is 56%. We focused on three additional ...
[124]
The effects of prenatal sex steroid hormones on sexual ...
Some studies have shown that sex differences in the central nervous system appear before the onset of the release gonadal hormones during embryonic development.
[125]
Magnitude of sex differences in spatial abilities: A meta-analysis and ...
The present study examined these issues in the context of spatial abilities. A meta-analysis of 286 effect sizes from a variety of spatial ability measures was ...
[126]
Sex differences in cognitive abilities: A cross-cultural perspective
In both cultures, girls averaged significantly higher scores on a Story Recall test, the Digit-Symbol test and a Word Fluency test whereas boys achieved ...
[127]
Gender differences in variability in intellectual abilities - SpringerLink
A cross-cultural quantitative review of contemporary findings of gender differences in variability in verbal, mathematical, and spatial abilities was conducted
[128]
Nurture affects gender differences in spatial abilities - PNAS
Aug 29, 2011 · The gender gap in spatial abilities, measured by time to solve a puzzle, disappears when we move from a patrilineal society to an adjoining matrilineal society.
[129]
Sex Differences in Intelligence (Chapter 14)
There are no sex differences in general intelligence – standardized IQ tests were written to show no differences, and separate assessments that were not written ...
[130]
Genome-wide meta-analysis of cognitive empathy: heritability, and ...
Jun 6, 2017 · We finally conducted gene-based enrichment analysis and investigate potential genetic sources of sex differences. Materials and methods ...
[131]
https://doi.org/10.1016/0273-2297(81)90021-6
[132]
Potential Reporting Bias in Neuroimaging Studies of Sex Differences
Apr 17, 2018 · Other investigators have posited that sex differences in cognitive test performance are explained by hormonal differences throughout development ...<|separator|>
[133]
[PDF] Ideological Bias in the Psychology of Sex and Gender - ArTS
Because feminism is the dominant ideological influence in the study of sex and gender, this chapter takes a critical stance toward feminist theory and research.
[134]
Ideological bias in the psychology of sex and gender. - APA PsycNet
This chapter discusses the influence of ideological bias in the psychological study of sex and gender, with a focus on academic psychology.
[135]
Sex differences in variability: Evidence from math and reading ...
Results from the first series of meta-analyses showed that boys' variability in mathematics was higher than girls' variability, VR = 1.101, (log)VR = 0.097, ...
[136]
Sex Differences in Intelligence on the WISC: A Meta-Analysis ... - MDPI
On the one hand, males exhibited higher performances in crystallized intelligence, visual processing, and quantitative knowledge. On the other hand, females ...
[137]
Sex Differences in Cognitive Reflection: A Meta-Analysis - PMC - NIH
Mar 29, 2024 · The current study presents a meta-analytic review of the differences between men and women in cognitive reflection (CR).
[138]
Sex Differences in Cognitive Decline Among US Adults
Feb 25, 2021 · Our results provide evidence suggesting that women have greater cognitive reserve but faster cognitive decline than men, independent of sex ...
[139]
Sex Differences in Cognitive Decline Among US Adults - PMC - NIH
Feb 25, 2021 · The results of this cohort study suggest that women may have greater cognitive reserve but faster cognitive decline than men, which could ...Missing: implications | Show results with:implications
[140]
Sex differences in cognitive performance persist into your 80s
Mar 17, 2025 · Results: Females outperformed males in executive functioning and memory. However, gonadal hormones did not mediate the sex effect on cognitive ...
[141]
Sex and gender differences in cognitive resilience to aging and ...
Jul 5, 2024 · Slower memory decline in women at the age of 40 and greater decline in women after the age of 60 were reported in the same study. In cognitively ...
[142]
Sex/gender differences in the clinical trajectory of Alzheimer's disease
Females show a cognitive advantage in early AD followed by more rapid decline. Females' verbal memory strengths may delay MCI detection.
[143]
Why women experience Alzheimer's disease differently from men
Apr 16, 2025 · These discrepancies go beyond the overall prevalence too: typically, women are diagnosed later than men and decline faster. Despite these clear ...
[144]
Sex differences in vulnerability to tau pathology: Impact on cognitive ...
Oct 8, 2025 · A+T− males showed faster cognitive decline compared to A+T− females (p < 0.005), whereas A+T+ females showed steeper cognitive decline compared ...Missing: policy | Show results with:policy
[145]
Sex differences in healthy brain aging are unlikely to explain ... - PNAS
These results suggest that sex differences in age-related brain decline are unlikely to contribute to the higher AD diagnosis prevalence in women, necessitating ...
[146]
Sex specific cognitive differences in Parkinson disease - PMC - NIH
Apr 8, 2020 · Our data indicate that males with PD have significantly greater executive and processing speed impairments compared to females despite no ...
[147]
Male sex accelerates cognitive decline in GBA1 Parkinson's disease
Mar 4, 2025 · Male sex and GBA1 carrier status have an additive value in increasing the risk of cognitive decline in PD.
[148]
Sex Differences in Parkinson's Disease: A Narrative Review
Dec 4, 2024 · Women progress towards cognitive impairment more slowly than men, and male sex is considered an important predictor of cognitive impairment in ...
[149]
Sex differences in the association between cognitive function and 24 ...
Sep 23, 2025 · This study filled this gap, finding that females' cognitive function was significantly associated with their activity behaviours, unlike males.
[150]
Sex differences in the outcomes of modifiable lifestyle factors for ...
This mini-review highlights the complex interplay between modifiable lifestyle factors, microglial activity, and cognitive aging, with an emphasis on sex ...
[151]
Public policy implications of sex differences in cognitive abilities.
Well-publicized reports that females and males obtain different average scores on some tests of cognitive abilities have created a wide array of public ...