Dec 01, 2019 23:00:00

Clearly there is no significant difference between the boy and girl brains being calculated

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Wavebreakmedia

In some educational settings, there is a preconception that `` male is better for women than mathematics and science '', but a stereotype based on a detailed study of the child's brain being calculated Turned out to be likely to be wrong.

Gender similarities in the brain during mathematics development | npj Science of Learning
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-019-0057-x

Study Finds Brains of Girls and Boys Are Similar, Producing Equal Math Ability
https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2019/november/girls-boys-brains-produce-equal-math-ability.html

Research groups such as Jessica Kantron, who is studying cognitive science at Carnegie Mellon University, have nuclear magnetic fields in children's brains to verify gender differences in STEM education , a collective term for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education fields. We conducted an experiment using resonance imaging (MRI) .

Kantron et al. Conducted a test with 104 children divided into three groups. In the first experiment, a total of 20.3 minutes of educational videos for children, consisting of “videos with and without math”, were shown to a total of 26 boys, 11 boys and 15 girls aged 4 to 10 years. . The brains of the children participating in the experiment were examined with MRI, and the function of the interparietal groove (IPS), which is said to be related to the calculation of numbers and the processing of numbers, was analyzed. The result is shown below. The left graph shows the activity of the IPS on the left side of the brain, and the right graph shows the activity of the IPS on the right side of the brain. In addition, the left side (Number) of each graph is an arithmetic video, and the right side (Non-Number) is a non-arithmetic video. If you compare the blue dot representing the boy's analysis with the red dot representing the girl's analysis, you can see that there is little difference.

Similarly, in the second experiment, an educational video for children of 11.6 minutes was shown to a total of 35 boys, 18 boys and 17 girls aged 4-8 years. The result is the following figure, and there was no significant difference.

In the third experiment, a total of 43 videos including 20 boys and 23 girls aged 3 to 5 years were presented with a video of a combination of “anime for children without sound and sound for counting and reading the alphabet”. I showed you a minute. The result is shown in the figure below. The left side (Counting) of each graph counts the number, and the right side (Alphabet) reads the alphabet. There is almost no difference.

In the experiment, not only children but also a total of 88 adults of 63 men and 25 women participated, the brain was analyzed by MRI, and the degree of brain development of the child was examined by comparing the result with the child However, no difference was seen in the brains of boys and girls.

About this result, co-author Alyssa Cursie said, “This experiment shows that boys and girls use the brain in the same way to process numbers.” In addition, Kantron said, 'Studies so far have revealed that boy parents tend to have children play to nurture spatial cognition, and many school teachers have been able to do ( (File) It is known that boys are given priority to spend time, and the acquired gender difference expands the small difference between men and women into a snowball, making a big difference when you grow up I pointed out, ”he said, and expressed a negative view of the hypothesis that there is a difference in the appropriateness of STEM education between men and women.