Differentially Talented Females: Some Critical Methodological Issues for the 1980s

Abstract

Usually psychometric studies have searched for the personality correlates associated with L (high linguistic and low quantitative ability) and Q (low linguistic and high quantitative ability) patterns. Neuropsychological studies, on the other hand, have searched for the cortical processes associated with L and Q patterns or for the psychological functions (presumably linguistic and visuospatial) associated with left- and right-hemispheric processing, respectively. To further our understanding of the relationship of L and Q patterns to personality correlates and modes of information processing and to clarify conflicting interpretations attributed to sex and sex-role factors, a cohort-sequential methodology and a convergence of psychometry with neuropsychology are recommended; three critical methodological issues are explored.