DEVELOPMENTAL SEX-DIFFERENCES IN GLOBAL-LOCAL PERCEPTUAL BIAS

Previous developmental studies have indicated that boys tend to perfor m better than girls on tasks associated with the right hemisphere (e.g ., spatial tasks), whereas girls perform better on tasks associated wi th the left hemisphere (e.g., verbal tasks). Extending this body of li terature to what is known about hemispheric specialization of visuospa tial processing, we predicted that boys would be more global than girl s in their perception of visual hierarchical stimuli. Forty girls and 39 boys between the ages of 4 and 12 years were administered a percept ual judgment task previously used by Kimchi and Palmer (1982). Boys we re significantly more global in their perceptual judgments than girls at all ages. Younger children of both sexes were less global than olde r children. Results were consistent with developmental models that sug gest an early left-hemisphere advantage for girls and a right-hemisphe re advantage for boys.