The Reason Behind Why Men Can’t Multi-Task
You often hear men saying they prefer to do one thing at a time, while women often do an expect multi-tasking. Some men can be so dedicated to one thing they don’t even notice their phone ringing. Women don’t understand this, if they can do three things at once why can’t men?
The male brain is configured for a single task at a time due to fewer connecting fibers between the right and left hemispheres, in fact if you read a man’s brain scan while reading you will find him practically deaf to his surroundings.
The belief that thought processes vary between men and women is true, science has quantified some of those differences. Men possess better motor and spatial skills than women with more one-track patterns of thought. Women have better memories and are capable of handling more than one thing at once.
To confirm this Dr. Ragini Verma of the University of Pennsylvania and her colleagues conducted a study on 428 men and boys, and 521 women and girls. The study included use of a diffusion tensor imaging technique (used to scan brains) to all participants.
The diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) works by following water molecules around the brain. In our brains the fibers that connect nerve cells have fatty sheaths, so that water in them can diffuse only along a fiber and not through the sheaths, making the technique able to spot bundles of these fibers and mark their path.
The results of the study have been summarized in two diagrams that show connection trends, the average of participant’s brains.
To better interpret the findings, remember that your brain is divided into two main parts, the cerebrum above and towards the front, and the cerebellum below and towards the back. The cerebrum is responsible for thinking and the cerebellum for actions, both are divided into left and right hemispheres. The picture on the left is a man’s brain and the blue marks depict the dominant connections in the cerebrum. In women you can observe orange marks between hemispheres. The connection in the cerebellum is opposite but can’t be seen as it lies beneath the cerebrum.
The interpretation of the results can vary, but Dr. Verma believes the wiring differences underlie some of the variations in male and female cognitive skills. The left side of the cerebrum is believed to be specialized for logical thoughts while the right side for intuitive thoughts. She believes that the cross connection between the left and right sides in the women’s diagram shows better memory, multitasking ability, and social adeptness. In men the links lie within hemispheres that allow them to concentrate on things that don’t need complex input from both hemispheres which results in monomania, or one-track thinking.
In the cerebellum the interlinks between hemispheres in men facilitate coordination of the sub-organ, which is important as each half controls one-half of the body, helping men to have better motor skills than women.
Dr. Verma also found that variations occur with age and are not congenital. The brains of boys and girls aged 8-13 showed only a few differences, which later became more pronounced. Brains of adolescents 13-17 showed more differences, increasing through young adults.
The fact that women use both sides of their brain might be the reason they find it difficult to tell their left hand from the right. Around 50% of women can’t instantly recognize their left hand and need to look at their rings or something else to figure it out. Conversely, men who operate with either hand find it much easier to tell right and left hands.
Recently American government has promised to spend a good amount of money for brain research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies. The advancement of techniques depends on the development of ways to look into living brains so that better results can be shown.
Vive la différence!| Economist