Researchers at the University of Cambridge conducted a study examining visual attention differences between newborn boys and girls, contributing to long-standing scientific questions about the relative influences of biological and environmental factors on sex differences.
The study involved 130 babies aged from eight hours to three days old at the Rosie hospital in Cambridge. Infants were shown side-by-side videos featuring a woman’s face and a Newton’s cradle toy while their eye movements were tracked. Both boys and girls demonstrated greater interest in the face video compared to the toy, but girls showed a more pronounced preference for the face relative to the toy than boys did. The findings were published in the journal Biology of Sex Differences.
Because the infants were only days old, researchers concluded that cultural influences and social experience were unlikely to account for the observed differences, pointing instead to biological factors such as genetics and prenatal hormone exposure. Previous research has shown that male fetuses are exposed to more than twice the level of testosterone as females during early pregnancy, potentially influencing developmental trajectories.
Yumnah Khan, a PhD student leading the research, emphasized that the study identifies average group differences rather than patterns applicable to all individuals, noting substantial variation and overlap between the sexes. The researchers suggested these early differences in social attention might facilitate the development of skills such as language acquisition and social interaction, areas where girls on average show earlier development than boys.
The Cambridge team is investigating potential connections between early sex differences and vulnerability to various conditions, including autism and ADHD, which are more commonly diagnosed in males, and anxiety and depression, which are more prevalent in females. Khan indicated that further studies tracking children into toddlerhood could provide additional support for hypotheses about how early differences influence later development.
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