Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

ecnp.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 49 posts

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#11

Post by pygy_ »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #6

Beautiful example of politics driving research. They only studied something they knew was a disadvantage for males, while the first thing everybody is curious about is how the IQ changed, if it changed: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/dr-paul-i...

IIRC the higher variance in male IQ is hypothesised to be the result of men having only one X chromosome. I'd expect the null to hold in this case.

As @chroma pointed out, it would have been interesting to see if the mental rotation ability was improved, or if it is dependent on testosterone exposition during development.

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#12

Post by WhitneyLand »

chroma wrote: post #9
csours wrote: post #2

I had a (male) colleague once argue with me that men and women had no differences in mentality due to testosterone. The desire to believe in equality is weird sometimes. To be clear, I don't think there is any difference in generic mental abilities due to gender / sex, but it seems clear that brains would be affected by hormonal differences - for instance I have a thyroid deficiency, and I can really feel it when I'm…

Did your colleague know about mental rotation tests?[1] Men perform significantly better than women at these. And among men, mental rotation ability is correlated with testosterone levels.[2] I could see your buddy arguing that culture was responsible for behavioral differences such as violent tendencies, but the same dismissal can't be made of this test. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_rotation 2. http://www…

>Men perform significantly better

Actually, the reference you cited says "slightly better". It may or may not be significant but let's stay on track here.

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#13

Post by chroma »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #12
chroma wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did your colleague know about mental rotation tests?[1] Men perform significantly better than women at these. And among men, mental rotation ability is correlated with testosterone levels.[2] I could see your buddy arguing that culture was responsible for behavioral differences such as violent tendencies, but the same dismissal can't be made of this test. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_rotation 2. http://www…

>Men perform significantly better Actually, the reference you cited says "slightly better". It may or may not be significant but let's stay on track here.

In the original mental rotation test, there was no overlap between men and women: https://brothersdiamond.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/menwoman...

The Vandenberg and Kuse paper[1] followed up on this using a test that was easier to administer to large groups. In that study, the average male score was the same as the 85th percentile of female scores.

"Significant" describes this difference much more accurately than "slight."

1. http://wexler.free.fr/library/files/peters%20(1995)%20a%20re...

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#14

Post by Agustus »

chroma wrote: post #13
WhitneyLand wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Men perform significantly better Actually, the reference you cited says "slightly better". It may or may not be significant but let's stay on track here.

In the original mental rotation test, there was no overlap between men and women: https://brothersdiamond.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/menwoman... The Vandenberg and Kuse paper[1] followed up on this using a test that was easier to administer to large groups. In that study, the average male score was the same as the 85th percentile of female scores. "Significant" describes this difference much more accurately than "sl…

The male versus female is amazing, but what about that drop in ability from age 29 to 33. I know one of the video game FPS coaches said that after you turn 30, one is out of the game, but look at that drop. There should be studies to figure out what causes that; it is impacting male and female.

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#15

Post by chroma »

Agustus wrote: post #14
chroma wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the original mental rotation test, there was no overlap between men and women: https://brothersdiamond.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/menwoman... The Vandenberg and Kuse paper[1] followed up on this using a test that was easier to administer to large groups. In that study, the average male score was the same as the 85th percentile of female scores. "Significant" describes this difference much more accurately than "sl…

The male versus female is amazing, but what about that drop in ability from age 29 to 33. I know one of the video game FPS coaches said that after you turn 30, one is out of the game, but look at that drop. There should be studies to figure out what causes that; it is impacting male and female.

The drop is probably multiple factors, including aging. The study was done in 1975. Someone 28 years old would have been born in 1947. A 33 year-old would have been born in 1942 –the darkest days of WWII. Prenatal nutrition was likely an issue then. Ditto for those born earlier, as they had to deal with the great depression.

Also, the sample size in the first study was rather small, as they were just trying to answer the question, "Does the time it takes to mentally rotate an object depend on the angle of rotation?" (Answer: yes.)

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#16

Post by BurningFrog »

csours wrote: post #2

I had a (male) colleague once argue with me that men and women had no differences in mentality due to testosterone. The desire to believe in equality is weird sometimes. To be clear, I don't think there is any difference in generic mental abilities due to gender / sex, but it seems clear that brains would be affected by hormonal differences - for instance I have a thyroid deficiency, and I can really feel it when I'm…

There are definitely differences in both generic mental abilities and what fields interest people between the sexes. From an evolutionary biology perspective, it would be really weird if there weren't.

To be clear, men and women are equally mentally gifted as a whole, but focused on different skills, and with bigger variance in men.

Pinker's "Blank Slate" lays out the case well: http://www.amazon.com/The-Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial/dp/15012...

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#17

Post by JoeAltmaier »

BurningFrog wrote: post #16
csours wrote: post #2

I had a (male) colleague once argue with me that men and women had no differences in mentality due to testosterone. The desire to believe in equality is weird sometimes. To be clear, I don't think there is any difference in generic mental abilities due to gender / sex, but it seems clear that brains would be affected by hormonal differences - for instance I have a thyroid deficiency, and I can really feel it when I'm…

There are definitely differences in both generic mental abilities and what fields interest people between the sexes. From an evolutionary biology perspective, it would be really weird if there weren't. To be clear, men and women are equally mentally gifted as a whole, but focused on different skills, and with bigger variance in men. Pinker's "Blank Slate" lays out the case well: http://www.amazon.com/The-Blank-Slate-…

I've understood that while men are better at spatial reasoning, they are barely statistically better. And while women are better at language tasks, they are way better. So the conversation has always been slanted in that way.

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#18

Post by esailija »

chroma wrote: post #10
captainmuon wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I see it is that, as often when it comes to differences due to sex, you have two wide Gaussian distributions that overlap a lot. Sure, there are behavioral differences (due to testosterone or other reasons), but the variation in behavior within one sex is probably larger than the distance between the means. The problem is, that in casual speech, we can only easily express black-and-white: either men and women…

With mental rotation, there is practically no overlap. See the graph from the original study.[1] It's a similar story for physical strength. Nobody denies that men tend to be stronger than women, but most people vastly underestimate the disparity. In a study that measured grip strength in 2,000 people[2], the weakest 5% of men were comparable to the top decile of women. Even elite female athletes were only as strong…

There's plenty of studies that debunk the mental rotation myth:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100915080431.ht...

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Angelica_Moe/publication...

There's also a study showing the field of neuroscience having a tendency to make unsupported and untested claims to confirm stereotypes http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12152-012-9169-1

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#19

Post by esailija »

BurningFrog wrote: post #16
csours wrote: post #2

I had a (male) colleague once argue with me that men and women had no differences in mentality due to testosterone. The desire to believe in equality is weird sometimes. To be clear, I don't think there is any difference in generic mental abilities due to gender / sex, but it seems clear that brains would be affected by hormonal differences - for instance I have a thyroid deficiency, and I can really feel it when I'm…

There are definitely differences in both generic mental abilities and what fields interest people between the sexes. From an evolutionary biology perspective, it would be really weird if there weren't. To be clear, men and women are equally mentally gifted as a whole, but focused on different skills, and with bigger variance in men. Pinker's "Blank Slate" lays out the case well: http://www.amazon.com/The-Blank-Slate-…

You mean evolutionary psychology, not biology. The former is basically a pseudoscience and the latter makes no such claims.

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#20

Post by davess1 »

vlehto wrote: post #4

I have MtF friend. We knew each other when we still we're both officially men. We became roommates for a year when she was mid transition. I thought that would be cool, because I might understand women better now that I had somebody who had seen the both perspectives. How it is to be a man and how it is to be a woman. I was wrong. She had never understood anything about manhood. Now she didn't even pretend anymore. I…

Could you elaborate more? What are some of the differences she didn't understand?
Post reply on HN