AGE AND SEX DIFFERENCES IN RESPONSES TO EMBEDDED FIGURES AND REVERSIBLE FIGURES

Responses to Embedded Figures and to a series of Reversible Figures, as given by 9-year-old, 11-year-old, and 13-year-old subjects, were assessed with a view of identifying systematic age and sex differences. The present findings show that: (1) the ontogenetic course of sex differences in perceptual responses follows a zigzagging and overlapping pattern rather than a unidirectional path, and data obtained from adult subjects may offer no valid clues with regard to the existence or direction of sex differences at younger age levels; (2) a particular pattern of sex differences uncovered in a specific perceptual response category supplies no valid indices for the existence of similar sex difference patterns in other and even related response categories; and (3) age changes in perceptual responses, like those pertaining to the pattern of sex differences, also appear to be task, response, and in some cases, sex specific. © 1969.