ABSTRACT

Small but robust differences in cognition exist between the sexes in adult populations. Studying sex differences in children’s cognition can bring insight into when, where and how these differences might emerge in development. Here, we focus on differences in working memory because of its importance in underpinning a wide range of complex cognitive tasks and developmental outcomes for children. Using two levels of difficulty on a standard test of working memory (N-Back), data from 104 6- to 7-year-olds in Cuba showed that boys have quicker reaction times, but girls provide more accurate responses. With a comparable true positive rate between boys and girls, the sex differences in both accuracy and reaction times were limited to false-positive responses. Sex differences were consistent across levels of task difficulty and persisted after speed-accuracy trade-offs were considered. We argue that avoiding false positives requires a particularly strong role for inhibitory control and that this emerges in development according to a different maturational schedule for girls than it does for boys, underpinned by quantitative and qualitative differences in the development of brain areas that support this function.

摘要

成年人群中的性别之间存在微小但显着的认知差异。研究儿童认知中的性别差异可以深入了解这些差异在发育过程中何时、何地以及如何出现。在这里，我们重点关注工作记忆的差异，因为它对于支持儿童的各种复杂认知任务和发展结果非常重要。在标准工作记忆测试 (N-Back) 中使用两个难度级别，来自古巴 104 名 6 至 7 岁儿童的数据表明，男孩的反应时间更快，但女孩的反应更准确。由于男孩和女孩之间的真阳性率相当，准确率和反应时间的性别差异仅限于假阳性反应。性别差异在任务难度级别上是一致的，并且在考虑速度准确度权衡后仍然存在。我们认为，避免假阳性需要抑制控制发挥特别强大的作用，并且这种情况是根据女孩与男孩不同的成熟时间表而出现的，其基础是支持这一功能的大脑区域发育的数量和质量差异。