Testing the greater male variability phenomenon: male mountain chickadees exhibit larger variation in reversal learning performance compared with females.

ABSTRACT: The greater male variability phenomenon predicts that males exhibit larger ranges of variation in cognitive performance compared with females; however, support for this pattern has come exclusively from studies of humans and lacks mechanistic explanation. Furthermore, the vast majority of the literature assessing sex differences in cognition is based on studies of humans and a few other mammals. In order to elucidate the underpinnings of cognitive variation and the potential for fitness consequences, we must investigate sex differences in cognition in non-mammalian systems as well. Here, we assess the performance of male and female food-caching birds on a spatial learning and memory task and a reversal spatial task to address whether there are sex differences in mean cognitive performance

SUBMITTER: Branch CL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7423667 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature