Researchers at Cambridge have shown that newborn girls and boys differ in what they pay attention to within hours of birth. Because these differences are present so early, the team suggests they may emerge from prenatal factors rather than from postnatal experience.
The findings indicate that some psychological differences between males and females could have origins that begin before birth. This adds to a growing line of research examining how biology and early development shape behaviour from the very start of life.
While the work does not resolve how these early attention patterns relate to later behaviour, it raises questions about the role of prenatal conditions in setting the stage for psychological development.