Sex differences, hemispheric laterality, and associated brain activity in the intellectually gifted

Abstract

Benbow (1986) proposed that enhanced development of the right cerebral hemisphere may be associated with extreme intellectual giftedness. Here we report on a series of studies conducted to evaluate the viability of this hypothesis, using several neurop‐sychological methods (e.g., dichotic listening, concurrent finger‐tapping, chimeric face, and word processing). Also presented are new data from electroencepha‐lographic recordings of brain activity taken from precocious and average‐ability male and female adolescents while they performed two of the aforementioned tasks. These experiments provide convergent lines of evidence suggesting that enhanced right‐hemisphere involvement during basic information processing, as well as superior coordination and allocation of cortical resources within and between the hemispheres, are unique characteristics of the gifted brain. The evidence is especially compelling for precocious male adolescents, as gifted female adolescents tend to exhibit a somewhat more bilateral and diffuse state of functional brain organization.