Sex and Cognition (Bradford Books) [Hardcover]

Doreen Kimura (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 18, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0262112361 | ISBN-13: 978-0262112369

Honorable Mention in the category of Psychology in the 1999 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Annual Awards Competition presented by the Association of American Publishers, Inc.


In this fact-driven book, Doreen Kimura provides an intelligible overview of what is known about the neural and hormonal bases of sex differences in behavior, particularly differences in cognitive ability. Kimura argues that women and men differ not only in physical attributes and reproductive function, but also in how they solve common problems. She offers evidence that the effects of sex hormones on brain organization occur so early in life that, from the start, the environment is acting on differently wired brains in girls and boys. She presents various behavioral, neurological, and endocrinological studies that shed light on the processes giving rise to these sex differences in the brain.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Kimura provides an authoritative overview of the field of sex differences in cognition, moving from hormones to cognition, genes to behavior, in a calm and clear way. This book will be a valuable resource for students and teachers of cognitive science."
—Simon Baron-Cohen, Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, UK

About the Author

Doreen Kimura is Professor of Psychology at Simon Fraser University. She is the author of Neuromotor Mechanisms in Human Communication and has written on sex and cognition for publications such as Scientific American. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (June 18, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262112361
• ISBN-13: 978-0262112369
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,776,513 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but not convincing, November 30, 2003

By 

Patrick Loughlin (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sex and Cognition (Bradford Books) (Paperback)

Easy to read and thought provoking, the book describes some very specific differences in mental abilities between men and women. Men are better at hitting a target with a missile and at mentally rotating an object while women are better at fine hand control and at verbal memory.

Two things bothered me about the arguments presented in this book.

One was the attempt to explain the abilities as evolved from the division of labor in early human hunter/gatherer societies. This was contradicted by experiments on rats that showed male rats were better at spatial navigation. This male linked ability could not have evolved in both early mammals and early humans. It would have been better to leave the whole hunter/gatherer argument out as it was not supported by experimentation.

Second, the author mentions "the sex differences...tend to be smaller in Asians and blacks." This would seem to indicate that the sex differences are cultural and not biological. The author assumes that the race differences are biological but gives no evidence to back this up.

The experiments did try to control for many variables such as the person's size, strength, speed, life experience and much more. The author kept the book very much on the science and avoided controversial and subjective politics.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nicely written and well-grounded in science, October 19, 2003

By 

Timothy D. Lundeen (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sex and Cognition (Bradford Books) (Hardcover)

This is an excellent summary of the current science of male/female brain differences, nicely written and well-grounded in experiment.

I read this followed by Sex on the Brain by Blum, Brain Sex by Moir/Jessel, and The Essential Difference by Baron-Cohen. If you only read one book, read The Essential Difference; if two, then read Sex and Cognition followed by The Essential Difference. The other two are worth reading as well, since they both have some unique material and perspectives. If you read all 4, I think the order I happened to read them worked well.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Closest thing to an authoritative work, June 13, 2005

By 

Deborah (AUSTIN, TX, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sex and Cognition (Bradford Books) (Hardcover)

No author can write an authoritative work in a field this complex and controversial, but Kimura has come close. At times her own views do seem to color her interpretation of certain studies but she is always careful to provide enough information to allow readers to reach their own conclusions.