Affiliations: Center for Neuropsychological Research of the
Policlinico Gemelli/ Catholic University of Rome, Rome, Italy | CEMI, Policlinico Gemelli/ Catholic University of
Rome, Rome, Italy
Note: [] Corresponding author: Prof. Guido Gainotti, Neuropsychology
Service, Policlinico Gemelli, Catholic University of Rome, Largo A. Gemelli 8,
00168 Rome, Italy. Tel.: +39 06 3550 1945; Fax: +39 06 3550 1909; E-mail:
gainotti@rm.unicatt.it
Abstract: Sex-related asymmetries in the ability to process different semantic
categories have been reported both in normal subjects and in brain-damaged
patients, but the nature of these asymmetries is still controversial. Some
authors suggest that these differences might be due to social-role related
familiarity factors, whereas others attribute them to inborn neural differences
rooted in evolution. Drawing in part on this second line of thought, some
authors have suggested that gender-related asymmetries might be due to
differences in stimulus processing between men and women, namely, to the
tendency of females to focus mainly on perceptual features and of males to
focus equally on both perceptual and functional features. To test this
hypothesis, we asked 53 male and 65 female undergraduate students to evaluate
the relevance of a number of perceptual and functional features in the
representation of various kinds of biological and artefact categories. Contrary
to the hypothesis, evaluation of the weight of different sources of knowledge
in representing living and artefact categories was similar in males and
females.
Keywords: Sex differences, living beings, familiarity, social roles, perceptual processing, sources of knowledge
