Overstudying is a dangerous thing.

Evil-Jeremy

kimsama

h_bee

apple_giraffe

Take that dumb article saying that girls aren't good at math!

CreoleSugar

Catty Is Cumbersome

Have any of you heard of Juergen Graf?? He's a famous exiled Holocaust revisionist and he can speak EIGHTEEN languages fluently including Chinese, Russian and Thai.

apple_giraffe

From the study, it appears that the brain structures which link the language-processing parts of the brain (the inferior frontal cortex and certain gryi of the temporal lobe) are more active in girls when presented with the verbal stimuli used in the study regardless of whether the verbal stimuli was auditory or visual. In boys, apparently the modality of the stimuli impacted the level of activation of the same brain structures. Not only was the activation level different, but apparently performance accuracy was different (i.e. measurably, the boys didn't do as well as the girls) depending on whether the boys heard or saw the words and how they were asked to report out.

So, in other words, girls' brains strongly activate the language processing centers whether or not they see or hear language, whereas boys' brains may be more selectively activating just auditory or just visual language processing centers. The researchers say that girls may process language "supramodally" -- through many pathways regardless of the mode of the stimulus (auditory or visual).

OH MY GOD I JUST NERDED OUT BIG TIME. I <3 Broca's area!

kimsama

Girls definitely have better oral skills than boys. I know this cause if you watch gay porn, the men don't suck dick as well as the women do in hetero porn which is fustrating as I only want to see men do it.

apple_giraffe

Tanith

As a language teacher, I do notice that my preteen girls *tend* to learn language more easily than the boys. Such as with any statistic, though, there are many, many exceptions to the rule.

ChooMama

nodoubt9203

[www.thestar.com]

PetiteGal

That said, differences are just... differences. This doesn't really say much about "intelligence", whatever that is.

h_bee

briardahl

LittleBlackFly

andBegorrah

Putney Swope Sequel

nodoubt9203

Oh, and the heritability data on language aptitude does show that very little of it is related to environmental factors. So it has nothing to do with environment, nor sexist expectations causing a self-fullfilling prophecy.

Oh, and psychological experiments which scan areas are often rife with errors, and rarely are able to reduce the effects of confounding variables. Personally I'm not sure why they were even bothering to test a phenomena that's already been well-explained. Or how they managed to secure funding for that matter.

Evil-Jeremy

my theory (personally) is that we're taught that girls are bad at math and good at language (and vice versa) and subconsciously (or consciously) give up at an early age.

onestrawplz

Putney Swope Sequel

Seriously, though... hope the point of the article was to be a general survey of how children's brains work, and not some quantitative judgement about one gender having an edge over the other. Differences aren't a negative, they're just differences.

@EmilyAnn: I saw that article in the NYT, but haven't read. As someone generally in favor of single-sex education for moderate stretches, is it worth reading?

DCI Gene Hunt

P.S. I'd note to everyone else that the study is about girls and boys, not men and women -- not at all safe to jump to the conclusion that the same thing is happening once brains have matured.

briardahl

As it is, I find studies that "prove" mental abilities based on gender that are conducted only in one country/culture highly suspect. Like when we're told that women "naturally" have lower math skills or can't read maps, I wonder if that's true the world over, or if women in the U.S. just aren't raised to learn or value those skills.

Gumbina80

Dauphine

Oface

nodoubt9203

sluggo

amowls

@Skinny Bone Jones: Ah, I see what you mean now. I just get stonerish and detail-obsessed when it comes to language stuff, cause it's a universe of complicated. Even just asking what it means to be skilled with language brings up all sorts of awesome questions about what language is for and what it means to be "better" at it.

briardahl

nodoubt9203

nodoubt9203

Archetype

andBegorrah

Miss Smith Drank Your Vodka

Which, of course, you must always take with a grain of salt, because stupid, inarticulate beasts of both genders exist the world over. Sadly.

SBJ

Miss Smith Drank Your Vodka

Ptarmigan

nodoubt9203

shunguy007

Lizawithazee

Archetype

ceejeemcbeegee

Archetype

I don't think single sex education should be pursued with the backing of researh like this. While it may be true that girls excel at oral learning (no pun intended), all children benefit from both oral and visual lessons, not just one or the other.

Catty Is Cumbersome

BlondeGrlz is having a BlondeBoyz!

briardahl

smopenna

WaltzingMatilda...same McCain, less filling!

nodoubt9203

nodoubt9203

Ptarmigan

WaltzingMatilda...same McCain, less filling!

SBJ

WaltzingMatilda...same McCain, less filling!

EmilyAnn

Hamsterpants

nodoubt9203

Jessi Ramsey

Please get a subscription to Scientific American immediately.

Thanks.

Abby

AbbyNormal