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Testing the Empathizing–Systemizing theory of sex differences and the Extreme Male Brain theory of autism in half a million people

UnHope20

July 20, 2022

3 upvotes

/r/Male_Studies

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1811032115

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Title	Testing the Empathizing–Systemizing theory of sex differences and the Extreme Male Brain theory of autism in half a million people
Author	UnHope20
Upvotes	3
Comments	5
Date	July 20, 2022 12:52 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Male_Studies
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Male_Studies/comments/w38o48/testing_the_empathizingsystemizing_theory_of_sex/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Male_Studies/testing-the-empathizingsystemizing-theory-of-sex.1215798 https://theredarchive.com/post/1215798

Comments

[–]UnHope20[S] 2 points3 points4 points 4 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

The Empathizing–Systemizing (E-S) theory of typical sex differences suggests that individuals may be classified based on empathy and systemizing.

An extension of the E-S theory, the Extreme Male Brain (EMB) theory suggests that autistic people on average have a shift towards a more masculinized brain along the E-S dimensions.

Both theories have been investigated in small sample sizes, limiting their generalizability. Here we leverage two large datasets (discovery n = 671,606, including 36,648 autistic individuals primarily; and validation n = 14,354, including 226 autistic individuals) to investigate 10 predictions of the E-S and the EMB theories.

In the discovery dataset, typical females on average showed higher scores on short forms of the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and Sensory Perception Quotient (SPQ), and typical males on average showed higher scores on short forms of the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and Systemizing Quotient (SQ). Typical sex differences in these measures were attenuated in autistic individuals.

Analysis of “brain types” revealed that typical females on average were more likely to be Type E (EQ > SQ) or Extreme Type E and that typical males on average were more likely to be Type S (SQ > EQ) or Extreme Type S.

In both datasets, autistic individuals, regardless of their reported sex, on average were “masculinized.”

Finally, we demonstrate that D-scores (difference between EQ and SQ) account for 19 times more of the variance in autistic traits (43%) than do other demographic variables including sex.

Our results provide robust evidence in support of both the E-S and EMB theories.

[Full Article Available]

I'd love to hear y'alls thoughts on this. Any supporting or refuting data would be cool.

[–]lightning_palm 2 points3 points4 points 4 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

Are D-scores the only way this theory is tested? If we take another sex-differentiated attribute and notice a reversed trend in autistic-people, would this then invalidate this theory? For example, I found the following:

Floris, D. L., Lai, M. C., Nath, T., Milham, M. P., & di Martino, A. (2018). Network-specific sex differentiation of intrinsic brain function in males with autism. Molecular Autism, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13229-018-0192-x

Across all R-fMRI metrics, results revealed coexisting, but network-specific, shift-towards-maleness and shift-towards-femaleness in males with ASD. A shift-towards-maleness mostly involved the default network, while a shift-towards-femaleness mostly occurred in the somatomotor network. Explorations of the associated cognitive processes using available cognitive ontology maps indicated that higher-order social cognitive functions corresponded to the shift-towards-maleness, while lower-order sensory motor processes corresponded to the shift-towards-femaleness.

To me, it seems overly simplistic to characterize sex-differences in the brain through D-scores alone.

[–]UnHope20[S] 2 points3 points4 points 3 years ago* (2 children) | Copy Link

Are D-scores the only way this theory is tested?

Correct. The operational definition of male brain is the D score.

If we take another sex-differentiated attribute and notice a reversed trend in autistic-people, would this then invalidate this theory?

Not quite sure that line of reasoning is appropriate for this situation.

Rather than trying to explain I'll let the grandaddy of this hypothesis elaborate.

Simon Baron Cohen has written a good explanation here that addresses some of the misunderstandings about the EMB hypothesis.

To me, it seems overly simplistic to characterize sex-differences in the brain through D-scores alone.

Two points on this.

Its probably unsafe to conflate what seems like complexity with appropriate methodology. I'd say that simplicity isn't antithetical to the scientific method. On the contrary the Principle of Parsimony has been integral to the development of science.
This would depend on the variable that is being measured no? A simplistic instrument may be the most effective and there really isn't a relationship between complexity of instrumentation and it's usefulness. A better gauge would be the construct validity and reliability.

For example, suppose I wanted to know what a person's favorite color was. There are several ways that I could investigate this question.

A. I could ask the person's friends and family what the person's favorite color is and chose the color that the majority selected.

B. I could use some sort of implicit association test to measure the color(s) that the person most associates with positive things.

C. I could look over every item that a person owns and count up which color is most frequent.

D. I could record EEG data on judgement preference task to examine occipital activity.

E. I could simply ask the person "what is your favorite color?"

All of methods will get you some data related to the question of what a person's favorite color happens to be.

But can we honestly say that asking people their favorite color is inferior to the others by virtue of it's simplicity? I gonna say no.

In the case of this topic, "Brain maleness" refers to masculinized brains with regard to where someone would fall on the empathizing/systematizing spectrum rather than masculinized brain in all aspects.

So while there may be some overlap between our two studies, they aren't really asking the same question. In fact, the findings are more so in agreement with each other if anything.

[–]lightning_palm 1 point2 points3 points 3 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

"Brain maleness" refers to masculinized brains with regard to where someone would fall on the empathizing/systematizing spectrum rather than masculinized brain in all aspects.

And that's my problem with the term "extreme male brain theory." The theory really only deals with one sex difference. And even if people are informed that the name refers only to a sex difference in socializing and systemizing, I worry that it will bias them towards other (invalid) conclusions.

So while there may be some overlap between our two studies, they aren't really asking the same question. In fact, the findings are more so in agreement with each other if anything.

Yes, I can see that the studies agree on what Baron-Cohen implicitly defined as an "extremely male brain." And I wonder, if it had first been discovered that the sensorimotor areas in autistic brains are more similar to those of women, would we now be talking about the "extreme female brain theory?" To accept this theory, it seems as though that one also has to (implicitly) accept that differences in scores between socializing (empathizing) and systemizing are the most characteristic of sex differences in the brain from a biological point of view when this idea really seems to stem from an intuition about what is most characteristic of a person from a social point of view.

So, rather than having a problem with the theory, I have an issue with its name and the conclusions it will lead people to. For example, in the article you sent me, there is the idea that the study's results give credence to the hypothesis that autistic females are under-diagnosed (despite comparably small differences in socializing/systemizing between autistic males and females). They also seem to infer that male sex-hormones could be related to autism, whereas the study I sent seems to contradict a simple mechanism like that.

[–]AmputatorBot 0 points1 point2 points 3 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link