Empathizing, systemizing and finger length ratio in a Swedish sample

von Horn, A., Bäckman, L., Davidsson, T. & Hansen, S. (2010). Empathizing, systemizing and finger length ratio in a Swedish sample. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 31–37.
The Empathy- and Systemizing Quotients (EQ and SQ, respectively; Baron-Cohen, 2003 ) were determined in a Swedish sample consisting mainly of university undergraduates. Females had significantly higher EQ than males, who in turn scored higher on the SQ inventory. Gender explained 12–14% of the variation. Males were strikingly overrepresented in the group defined by a high SQ/low EQ profile or by a large SQ – EQ difference; females dominated among people with a low SQ/high EQ profile or by a large EQ – SQ difference. Students majoring in the natural sciences had higher SQs than psychology majors, but in both groups the gender difference in SQ and EQ was strong. For each participant a weighted composite score was generated by multivariate processing of the EQ and SQ data (Partial Least Square Discriminant Analysis). These scores were associated in a sex-linked fashion to a biometric measure reflecting prenatal testosterone exposure, i.e. the ratio between index (2D)- and ring (4D) finger lengths. In males a high (female-typical) 2D:4D ratio predicted an enhanced tendency to empathize and a reduced tendency to systemize; in women, by contrast, the 2D:4D ratio was unrelated to these traits. The present research confirms earlier work of a gender difference in EQ and SQ. The difference appears robust as it appears as large in Sweden (a country with high cultural gender-equality) as in countries with considerably lower gender-equality.     

Self-Employment and Baby Boomers: Ten Tips for Your Clients

The movement toward growth that characterized American industry for much of this century has now changed to a trend of consolidation. Consolidation typically includes layoffs, reductions in force, and restructuring. Such downsizing has caused baby boomers holding executive, managerial and professional administrative positions to consider self-employment opportunities. This article discusses how career counselors can assist these clients in evaluating and making the move from corporate America to self-employment.     

FORMALIZATION OF HILBERT'S GEOMETRY OF INCIDENCE AND PARALLELISM

Three things are presented: How Hilbert changed the original construction postulates of his geometry into existential axioms; In what sense he formalized geometry; How elementary geometry is formalized to present day's standards.     

Encoding in anticipation of various tests of retention

Abstract.— Subjects learned a pictorial material in anticipation of either free recall (FR), serial recall (SR), or recognition tests. A design containing all possible combinations of anticipated test and test actually given was used. SR and recognition performance was best when subjects anticipated these tests, respectively, whereas FR performance was best when an SR test was anticipated. Anticipation of recognition tended to interfere with SR performance, and vice versa. The results indicate that subjects encode pictorial material differently in anticipation of different retention tests; that this serves to facilitate or to impair performance on the anticipated and/or other retention tests in a predictable manner; and that subjects tend to use different information from the stimuli to pass recognition tests and to pass recall (FR or SR) tests.     

Effects of different motion characteristics on perceived motion in depth

Abstract.— The effect of different velocity characteristics on type of perceived motion were tested with three different stimulus patterns, each representing a certain case of relative motion vectors derived from a vector model for perceived motion in space. The oscilloscope generated patterns, displayed onto a translucent screen, consisted of two dots moving back and forth in their motion paths. The subjects described the perceived motion verbally. The reports were classified into four response categories, i.e. perceived translation in depth, rotation in depth, translation and rotation in depth, and finally, perceived motion in a frontoparallel plane. It was found, first, that no type of relative motion vectors consistently yielded the same distribution of responses for the different velocity conditions. Second, there were no main effects of type of velocity functions (sinusoidal, hyperbolical, and constant) on perceived motion. Third, the position of maximum velocity of the dots affected perceived motion, maximum velocity at the center of the motion path favoring perceived rotation in depth and maximum velocity at the end points of the paths favoring perceived translation in depth. Finally, patterns with continuously repeated motion cycles favored perceived rotation in depth. When the continuity was broken down by pauses at the center and the end points of the motion paths and a small spatial gap at the center of the path, perceived translation in depth was favored.