WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Cambridge scientists have found that newborn girls and boys may differ in what they pay attention to, even within hours of birth, according to a study published in Biology of Sex Differences.
The study involved 130 newborn babies between eight hours and three days old. While sitting on a parent or caregiver's lap, they watched a laptop screen showing two videos side by side. One showed a young woman's face, while the other showed a Newton's cradle toy moving back and forth. An eye-tracking device recorded where the babies looked.
Both boys and girls spent more time looking at the woman's face than at the toy. However, the girls showed a stronger preference for the face compared with the boys.
'Our recent research has also shown that average sex differences are present in brain structure at birth and emerge prenatally. This new study tells us that there are not only average sex differences in the brain but also in attention and behavior,' said lead researcher Yumnah Khan.
Since the differences were seen only hours after birth, the researchers said they were unlikely to be mainly caused by experiences after birth, such as social expectations about gender. They suggested that biological factors during pregnancy, including differences in hormones and genetics, may contribute to these early differences.
The researchers are now studying whether these early differences in attention are linked to later differences in how children think, how their brains develop and how they behave. A follow-up study is already underway.
The team hopes that understanding how these differences begin could also help researchers learn more about neurodiversity and conditions such as autism, which is diagnosed more often in boys than in girls.
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