A NEUROPSYCHOLOGIC PROFILE OF HOMOSEXUAL AND HETEROSEXUAL MEN AND WOMEN

To examine the applicability of psychosexual differentiation theory to the development of sexual orientation heterosexual (HT) women, HT men , lesbians, and gay men (20 per group) completed a lexical-decision/se mantic monitoring task (LD/SM) to assess verbal ability, as well as a Water Level Task (WLT) and two Mental Rotation (MR) Tasks designed to assess spatial ability. All tests have been shown to differentiate HT men and women. Results replicated previously reported sex differences between the HT men and women. Further, gay men performed akin to HT wo men on the verbal task and the MR tasks, but not in the WLT. Lesbians, however, primarily performed in a sex-typical manner. The dissociatio n in sex-atypicality between lesbians and gay men is discussed in rela tion to neurobiological factors related to the development of both sex -dimorphic cognitive ability and sexual orientation.