Two aspects related to sex differences were investigated in the present study: the performance of university students in the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices Test and the analysis of articles published, according to sex, in major scientific journals. 547 students from different university courses were assessed and, the authorship of 12797 scientific articles published in national and international journals during the period 2000 and 2010 was accounted. Significant differences in favor of male in the Raven's Test for the overall sample as well as for Engineering, Medicine and Psychology courses were found. In addition, there was a predominantly male first authorship in three areas of knowledge (Humanities, Biological and Exact). The findings suggested cognitive specialization differences between sexes, which may be expressed into visuospacial reasoning skills, and scientific production.
Sex differences; Scientific research; Visuospatial ability
