Newborn girls and boys show different attention patterns within hours of birth
· Medical Xpressedited by Swati Mestri, reviewed by Robert Egan
Swati Mestri
Scientific Editor
Meet our editorial team
Behind our editorial process
Robert Egan
Senior Editor
Meet our editorial team
Behind our editorial process Editors' notes
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:
fact-checked
trusted source
proofread
The GIST Add as preferred source
Cambridge scientists have shown that girls and boys differ in what they pay attention to, even at birth. Since these differences are present so early, it is possible they emerge due to prenatal factors. The findings suggest that some psychological differences between males and females (such as the development of social skills) may be influenced by both prenatal biology and later experience.
The study, published in Biology of Sex Differences, involved testing 130 newborn infants only hours after birth. It builds on previous research by the same lab and uses robust methods to demonstrate the differences.
Revisiting early attention differences
For years, research has shown that girls, on average, learn to talk earlier and develop social skills faster than boys. Scientists have long debated whether these differences are due to culture or biology. One way to answer this question is to test whether sex differences are present soon after birth, before society and culture have influenced a child's development.
A study from the University of Cambridge published in 2000 found that girls, on average, looked longer at faces at birth, while boys, on average, looked longer at objects. Since then, scientists in the field have called for a replication of this study. However, no research team has attempted this until now because it is very challenging to conduct research on newborn infants.
Faces drew more attention
In this new study, infants were presented with side-by-side videos containing a social stimulus, namely a human face with natural movement, and a nonsocial object, namely a set of metallic balls swinging due to gravity and their mechanical properties (a Newton's cradle).
The team found that, regardless of sex, newborn infants generally preferred to look at the social stimulus. However, on average, female infants spent a greater proportion of time looking at the social stimulus than male infants, while male infants spent a greater proportion of time looking at the nonsocial stimulus than female infants.
Prenatal factors may contribute
Because these differences occur within hours of birth, before infants have had much postnatal experience (such as social expectations based on gender), it is likely that prenatal biological factors that differ between the sexes during pregnancy (such as hormone levels and genetics) contribute to the observed average sex differences.
Yumnah Khan, a Ph.D. student at the Autism Research Centre, University of Cambridge, and the lead researcher on the study, said, "Our recent research has also shown that average sex differences are present in brain structure at birth and emerge prenatally. This new study tells us that there are not only average sex differences in the brain but also in attention and behavior."
Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre, University of Cambridge, who supervised the study, said, "This study addresses the age-old question of whether nature plays any role at all in shaping sex differences in the human mind and brain.
The fact that we observe these differences within hours of birth, before extensive postnatal experience has occurred, suggests that prenatal factors play a role, and that these prenatal factors—sex hormones and/or genes—go on to interact with postnatal experience. In other words, it's nature and nurture, not nature or nurture."
Limits of group averages
The new study used more robust methods than the original 2000 study. In particular, it included more controlled experimental testing conditions and a more reliable method to monitor infant gaze. Crucially, the researchers who analyzed the videos of the babies' eyes were blind to the babies' sex and whether they were looking at the social or nonsocial stimulus, ensuring that they could not bias the results.
Dr. Alex Tsompanidis, assistant research professor at the Autism Research Centre and a member of the research team, said, "Sex differences at birth are important as starting points, but we need to remember that they don't fully determine how children learn and develop in later life. This is because biological and social factors always interact, contributing to the rich diversity of human societies."
Professor Carrie Allison, deputy director of the Autism Research Centre and another member of the research team, said, "The differences we see don't apply to all male or all female infants and are only seen when you compare groups of male and female infants, on average. There's a lot of variation within, and overlap between, each sex. Our future research needs to better understand that variation."
The team is now interested in finding out whether these early sex differences contribute to later differences in children's minds, brains and behavior. Testing this requires a longitudinal (follow-up) study design, which is underway. The researchers hope that by understanding the origins of the earliest sex differences, scientists can better understand neurodiversity and conditions such as autism, which is diagnosed about twice as often in boys as in girls.
More information
Yumnah T. Khan et al, Sex differences in face looking preferences at birth, Biology of Sex Differences (2026). DOI: 10.1186/s13293-026-00976-9
Key medical concepts
Clinical categories
PediatricsChildren's healthPsychiatry Provided by University of Cambridge Who's behind this story?
Swati Mestri
Swati Mestri holds a bachelor's degree in Electronics Engineering and has worked as a content editor since 2019. She has experience editing research documents across technology, health care, and materials science, and has a particular interest in technology and space. Full profile →
Robert Egan
Bachelor's in mathematical biology, Master's in creative writing. Well-traveled with unique perspectives on science and language. Full profile →
Citation: Newborn girls and boys show different attention patterns within hours of birth (2026, September 21) retrieved 21 September 2026 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-newborn-girls-boys-attention-patterns.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.