Evolution & Human Behavior
Volume 27, Issue 2 , Pages 158-168, March 2006

Human evolution and the brain representation of semantic knowledge: is there a role for sex differences?

  • Marcella Laiacona

      Affiliations

    • Centro Medico di Veruno, “S. Maugeri” Foundation, IRCCS, Neuropsychology Unit, Division of Neurology, Rehabilitation Institute of Veruno, Veruno, Novara, Italy
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author. Centro Medico di Veruno, Fondazione S. Maugeri, Via per Revislate 13, 28010 Veruno (NO), Italy. Tel.: +39 0322 884703; fax: +39 0322 830294.
    • ,
  • Riccardo Barbarotto

      Affiliations

    • Neuropsychology Unit, Istituto “Villa S. Ambrogio,” Fatebenefratelli, Cernusco s/N, Milan, Italy
    • ,
  • Erminio Capitani

      Affiliations

    • Clinic for Nervous Diseases, Milan University, Milan, Italy

Received 25 November 2004; accepted 22 July 2005. published online 26 September 2005.

Abstract 

A sexual asymmetry has been recently found on semantic memory tasks: after brain damage, a disproportionate deficit for information about biological categories has been reported more frequently for male patients. A review of cases shows that the fine-grained pattern is more complicated in that there is a strong interaction with sex: Disproportionate plant-knowledge deficits are restricted to males, whereas disproportionate animal-knowledge deficits are rare and show no sex bias. These clinical data are consistent with semantic-knowledge data from normal subjects indicating a task-invariant female advantage with plant categories. In this study, we seek an explanation for this sex-by-semantic category interaction and discuss the possible roles of a greater female experience with plant items, both ontogenetically and over evolutionary time.

Keywords: Semantic memory, Sexual division of labor, Sex differences

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PII: S1090-5138(05)00074-7

doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2005.08.002

Evolution & Human Behavior
Volume 27, Issue 2 , Pages 158-168, March 2006

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