A META-ANALYSIS OF SEX-DIFFERENCES IN THE EFFECTS OF UNILATERAL BRAIN-DAMAGE ON INTELLIGENCE-TEST RESULTS

To evaluate the influence of sex on the effects of unilateral brain damage on Wechsler IQ, 16 studies were examined by means of linear regression analyses. Although only 2 of these studies originally were designed to investigate sex differences, these analyses revealed that the proportions of males and females tested has affected the overall outcome. A greater preponderance of men in either the left or right lesion groups was associated with larger test-specific deficits in the verbal and the performance scales, respectively. Left lesion women showed impairment on both scales, perhaps because they may use left hemisphere processing to solve both verbal and ostensibly non-verbal problems.