https://hn.algolia.com/?query=changes%20brain&sort=byPopular...
so does meditation, walking in nature, inactivity, porn, drugs, focus, menstruation, Alzheimer's, cellphones, the iInternet, The Knowledge, programming, football...
changing it's structure is how the brain reacts to basically any regular stimulus. Thats how it works.
Effect power == bury it in the results, give it a one line 'yeah, we noticed that' in the discussion, so the publication reveiwer can't accuse you of missing something.
How much of the change they observe is caused by testosterone, and how much is the expectation that one is becoming more masculine (and the downstream behavioral changes/feedback loop created if the self is _noticing_ changes that reinforce this expectation?) This isn't to say the effect they observe isn't real, but the conclusion they've reached doesn't seem to follow from the methodology discussed in the release.
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 think there are some real and big differences between the sexes, but I still don't have good grasp about them.
He expected his friend, who he perceived as a "man", to have a particular kind of insight after the transition. Instead, he learned that his perception of the friend as a "man" was a projection. His friend would not have felt the need to transition if she felt she was a "man."
His friend could only provide more nuanced insights, because her experience was not that of a "man" becoming a "woman."
If I asked her what women generally don't understand about men, she was unable to answer.
If I asked her what men don't understand about women, she replied with the standard feminist propaganda.
She had no special insight why women do things the way they do. (makeup, skirts, etc.) And she was unable to spot any non obvious differences between the sexes.
She's really not stupid. Just lacking perspective. Just like I am, but from different point of view.
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 low.
For example, many people will remark on an increased sex drive (not a surprise considering the testosterone), but the way people actually think about and treat the opposite gender seems to change as well. It would suggest that testosterone has a part to play in the development of gendered social structures. But who knows?
As a transman with a background in the sciences (social), I was actually really disappointed that there weren't any attempts to systematically gather this data when I was transitioning. I agree, it could bring a lot of data to the table that otherwise can't be ethically collected. Of course, in reporting any correlations there would need to be clear indications that the data came from the transexual community.
> many people will remark on an increased sex drive (not a surprise considering the testosterone)
Holy smokes! I was prepared for an increase, but I was totally not prepared for the amount of increase! I transitioned several years ago, and this change was definitely the one I was least prepared for.
> but the way people actually think about and treat the opposite gender seems to change as well.
Caveats galore: I don't think I treat the "opposite gender" any differently (to be clear, I was born in a female body, but identify as a guy, so "opposite gender" for me has always been women). But, I am very definitely treated differently BY many people, including women, now that I pass, i.e. I am seen as guy. As a result, I definitely treat individuals of the opposite gender differently because of how they treat me. For example, I can't stand women who complain about being discriminated against, but then clearly and unambiguously discriminate against me because I appear to be a privileged white guy. I simply couldn't judge this when I passed as a woman (I was aware that it happened, but without being a participant it's hard to determine whether that is in fact what's happening.) I now pass enough that I've experienced this with quite a few women. I've also dealt with more than a few women who are so hell bent on how they've been wronged, that they won't work with me because I'm a guy. The irony is that because I pass, when I'm in predominantly or exclusively male groups, I'm better able to argue for things which will reduce actual discrimination and bias against women.
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.
As I understand it (I'm not an IQ expert, just some internet know-it-all), women score better on some categories of questions, as do men, so when you put together a test, you try to make sure it balances out so both get the same average.
The problem is, that in casual speech, we can only easily express black-and-white: either men and women are different due to testosterone, or they are not. Neither statement is really correct.
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 as the median untrained male.
There are more examples (propensity for violence is another big one), but it takes time to find citations. Suffice it to say that most people think the sexes are more similar than they actually are.
1. https://brothersdiamond.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/menwoman... (For more on mental rotation and testosterone's effects, see my comment downthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10443021)
2. http://egitim.judo.gov.tr/Dosyalar/makaleler/-ENG-Hand-grip-...
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...
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_rotation
2. http://www.academia.edu/3118000/The_relationship_of_male_tes...
Actually, the reference you cited says "slightly better". It may or may not be significant but let's stay on track here.
It's not that weird. If you look back in the HN archives, you can find one or two submissions from transsexual authors who argue, essentially, that after changing genders, they were discriminated against more, and that this proves that society/Silicon Valley/etc must be extremely sexist & discriminatory because nothing else about them changed; many of the HN commenters agreed with the claims.
Not to mention that there are lots of other differences that can have an impact, from the generally reduced physical strength, to birth related effects all the way down to increased life span...
This means you can always find a study supporting what you want to believe.
Evolutionary psychology does have some problems :) It's easy to tell dazzling and believable stories in that frame, but much harder to prove them empirically.
I think some real science is being done in the field, but I agree that when people make EP arguments on the internet, you need to apply a lot of skepticism.
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...
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.)
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
Political fictions are comfortable but don't really change facts, they just color interpretations. Mischaracterizing observation does not serve to make an argument appear stronger.
Note that none of this means women are inferior, and if you are construing my point to mean I am arguing for that position, you have imposed that on me.
erm...please read
1. Genomic differences between developing male and female brains in the womb-- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150203190223.ht...
and if you still feel that somehow humans try to gender stereotype whilst the fetus are still in the wombs, then read this also-
2.Sex differences in rhesus monkey toy preferences parallel those of children-- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/
I also don't have time to go into the studies you linked about general differences but similar studies have been debunked before. For example with 1.5 day old infants where the experimenters knew about the sex and their bias subtly corrupted the experiment and it did not reproduce when the bias was truly accounted for.
