A process-oriented model of cognitive sex differences

Abstract Previous researchers have concluded that males perform better, on average, than females on visual-spatial tasks and quantitative tasks, while females show superior performance on verbal tasks. However, this tri-partite abilities rubric cannot account for the many cognitive tasks that do not conform to this pattern and the wide variety of tasks that are subsumed under each category heading. Males perform more accurately and quickly on some verbal tasks (e.g., verbal analogies), females perform more accurately and quickly on some quantitative tasks (e.g., arithmetic), and many visual-spatial tasks show no sex differences. In order to explain these anomalies, Halpern (1992), suggested that a more useful model for understanding cognitive sex differences would be organized according to the underlying cognitive processes. A process-oriented model based on what people do when they perform a cognitive task was investigated. We concluded that categorizing sex differences according to the underlying cognitive processes and utilizing recent advances in cognitive theory and measurement, allows us to explain anomalies in the research literature and provides a more meaningful approach to investigating individual differences in cognition.

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