PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Having a male co-twin improves mental rotation performance in females

2010-09-07
(Press-News.org) Having a sibling, especially a twin, impacts your life. Your twin may be your best friend or your biggest rival, but throughout life you influence each other. However, a recent study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, shows that having an opposite-sex twin may impact you even before you are born: females with a male co-twin score higher on mental rotation task than females with a female co-twin.

Males, as young as three months of age, outperform females on mental rotation tasks, tests that require rotation of three dimensional objects in mental space. Testosterone has been suggested to account, at least partially, for sex differences in this task suggesting that females with exposure to higher levels of prenatal testosterone may perform better than females with lower levels of testosterone.

Eero Vuoksimaa from the University of Helsinki and co-authors assessed the possible prenatal masculinization of spatial ability in females with a male co-twin. "Earlier studies have tested the possible masculinization of females with a male co-twin, but the measures in those studies have not always been ideal," says Vuoksimaa. "If prenatal masculinization does occur in female twins from opposite-sex pairs, it would be expected to be most evident in behaviors that are related to testosterone levels and show a large and robust male advantage, such as the mental rotation task."

For the study, mental rotation task scores between twins from same-sex and opposite-sex pairs were compared. Not surprisingly males scored higher than females, but females with a male co-twin scored higher than did females with a female co-twin. In contrast, there was no difference in the mental rotation task performance of males from opposite-sex and same-sex pairs.

For females with a twin brother, determining if differences in performance are due to prenatal exposure to testosterone or due to their tendency to engage in more male-typical activities is still unclear. "While our results are consistent with the prenatal masculinization hypothesis," says Vuoksimaa, "girls who grow up with a twin brother experience a different social world than girls growing up with a twin sister. We cannot exclude effects of post-birth socialization."

However, the psychological scientists included a computer game task in their study, a possible indicator of practice effects. "Interestingly, computer game playing experience was not related to mental rotation test performance in our study," says Vuoksimaa. This suggests that the results are not fully explained by postnatal environment, but the route for masculinization of mental rotation ability remains unknown. "More research is needed to disentangle the origins of the masculinization of mental rotation performance in females with a male co-twin."

###

For more information about this study, please contact Eero Vuoksimaa at eero.vuoksimaa@helsinki.fi.

The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "Having a Male Co-Twin Masculinizes Mental Rotation Performance in Females" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Keri Chiodo at 202-293-9300 or kchiodo@psychologicalscience.org.

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Can we spot volcanoes on alien worlds? Astronomers say yes

Can we spot volcanoes on alien worlds? Astronomers say yes
2010-09-07
Volcanoes display the awesome power of Nature like few other events. Earlier this year, ash from an Icelandic volcano disrupted air travel throughout much of northern Europe. Yet this recent eruption pales next to the fury of Jupiter's moon Io, the most volcanic body in our solar system. Now that astronomers are finding rocky worlds orbiting distant stars, they're asking the next logical questions: Do any of those worlds have volcanoes? And if so, could we detect them? Work by theorists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics suggests that the answer to the ...

Short sleepers at higher risk of diabetes and heart disease

2010-09-07
People who sleep less than six hours a night may be three times more likely to develop a condition which leads to diabetes and heart disease, according to researchers at the University of Warwick. A study by a team of researchers from Warwick Medical School and the State University of New York at Buffalo has found short sleep duration is associated with an elevated risk of a pre-diabetic state, known as incident-impaired fasting glycaemia (IFG). IFG means that your body isn't able to regulate glucose as efficiently as it should. People with IFG have a greater risk ...

Bariatric operations reduce odds of gestational diabetes, cesarean section

2010-09-07
CHICAGO (September 7, 2010) – Obese women who have bariatric surgical procedures before pregnancy were three times less likely to develop gestational diabetes (GDM) than women who have bariatric operations after delivery, according to new research findings published in the August issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. The retrospective study also found that delivery after bariatric procedures was associated with reduced odds of cesarean section—an outcome associated with GDM. Gestational diabetes affects at least seven percent of all pregnancies in ...

The digital film reel

2010-09-07
In the production of films for movie theaters and cinemas, digital technology is pushing the film reel aside much more slowly than it does with photography. Up until only a few years ago, mainly 35 mm cameras were being used, and sales of digital movie cameras exceeded those of analog movie cameras only in 2008. Most movies continue to be recorded on film material and are then digitalized. Post production is done at the computer again, and digital projection is also forging ahead. Instead of film reels data packets – Digital Cinema Packages, in short DCPs – are being ...

Low-income neighborhoods experience far more injuries than high-income areas

2010-09-07
CHICAGO (September 7, 2010) – Penetrating injury rates were more than 20 times higher for persons living in the lowest income neighborhoods compared with those living in the highest income neighborhoods, according to a new study published in the August issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Researchers also found that those in the lowest-income neighborhoods experienced nearly six times higher rates of blunt injury than persons in the highest income neighborhoods. Penetrating injuries included those from firearms or cuts; blunt injuries included motor ...

Unusual feed supplement could ease greenhouse gassy cows

2010-09-07
Cow belches, a major source of greenhouse gases, could be decreased by an unusual feed supplement developed by a Penn State dairy scientist. In a series of laboratory experiments and a live animal test, an oregano-based supplement not only decreased methane emissions in dairy cows by 40 percent, but also improved milk production, according to Alexander Hristov, an associate professor of dairy nutrition. The natural methane-reduction supplement could lead to a cleaner environment and more productive dairy operations. "Cattle are actually a major producer of methane ...

New robotic head and neck cancer surgery preserves speech, without scarring

New robotic head and neck cancer surgery preserves speech, without scarring
2010-09-07
VIDEO: Tamer A. Ghanem, M.D., Ph.D., director of Head and Neck Oncology and Reconstructive Surgery Division in the Department of Otolaryngology -- Head & Neck Surgery at Henry Ford Hospital, discusses... Click here for more information. DETROIT – An incisionless robotic surgical procedure is offering patients a new option to remove certain head and neck cancer tumors without visible scarring, while preserving speech and the ability to eat. Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit ...

Researchers at UC Riverside find solution to cell death problem vexing stem cell research

Researchers at UC Riverside find solution to cell death problem vexing stem cell research
2010-09-07
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Human pluripotent stem (hPS) cells can generate any given cell type in the adult human body, which is why they are of interest to stem cell scientists working on finding therapies for spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease, burns, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and other ailments. Before hPS cell technologies can be translated into clinical applications, however, some obstacles must first be overcome. One such obstacle frustrating stem cell researchers is "cell death" that the major types of hPS cells, including human embryonic stem cells ...

Plant nutrients from wastewater

2010-09-07
Plants cannot thrive without nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous or potassium, therefore farmers usually use organic and industrially manufactured mineral fertilizers to supply wheat, maize and others with these vital substances. In future, the need for nutrients will be soaring because we will only be able to supply the world's growing population with food and cover surging demands for biofuels by using fertilizers. Logically, that causes the prices for these nutrients to skyrocket. But that is not the only problem. The deposits of rock phosphates required for manufacturing ...

Choice of career is a major risk factor for persistent neurodermatitis

2010-09-07
A child who can't stop scratching himself may well be suffering from atopic dermatitis, also known as neurodermatitis. Extreme irritability of the skin with a concomitant urge to scratch is typical of the disorder. The condition often appears during the first year of life and is on the increase in industrialized countries. The patient's skin becomes hypersensitive and reacts strongly to even mild irritation. A research team led by Dr. Astrid Peters and Professor Katja Radon from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich has just published a longitudinal study which ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

What are they vaping? Study reveals alarming surge in adolescent vaping of THC, CBD, and synthetic cannabinoids

ECMWF - delivering forecasts over 10 times faster and cutting energy usage by 1000

Brazilian neuroscientist reveals how viral infections transform the brain through microscopic detective work

Turning social fragmentation into action through discovering relatedness

Cheese may really be giving you nightmares, scientists find

Study reveals most common medical emergencies in schools

Breathable yet protective: Next-gen medical textiles with micro/nano networks

Frequency-engineered MXene supercapacitors enable efficient pulse charging in TENG–SC hybrid systems

Developed an AI-based classification system for facial pigmented lesions

Achieving 20% efficiency in halogen-free organic solar cells via isomeric additive-mediated sequential processing

New book Terraglossia reclaims language, Country and culture

The most effective diabetes drugs don't reach enough patients yet

Breast cancer risk in younger women may be influenced by hormone therapy

Strategies for staying smoke-free after rehab

Commentary questions the potential benefit of levothyroxine treatment of mild hypothyroidism during pregnancy

Study projects over 14 million preventable deaths by 2030 if USAID defunding continues

New study reveals 33% gap in transplant access for UK’s poorest children

Dysregulated epigenetic memory in early embryos offers new clues to the inheritance of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)

IVF and IUI pregnancy rates remain stable across Europe, despite an increasing uptake of single embryo transfer

It takes a village: Chimpanzee babies do better when their moms have social connections

From lab to market: how renewable polymers could transform medicine

Striking increase in obesity observed among youth between 2011 and 2023

No evidence that medications trigger microscopic colitis in older adults

NYUAD researchers find link between brain growth and mental health disorders

Aging-related inflammation is not universal across human populations, new study finds

University of Oregon to create national children’s mental health center with $11 million federal grant

Rare achievement: UTA undergrad publishes research

Fact or fiction? The ADHD info dilemma

Genetic ancestry linked to risk of severe dengue

Genomes reveal the Norwegian lemming as one of the youngest mammal species

[Press-News.org] Having a male co-twin improves mental rotation performance in females