An Inquiry into the Possible Existence of Internal Differences Correlated With A Morphological Dimorphism in the Terrestrial Species Homo sapiens, with Some Considerations of Methodology

by
Paige Cunningham, Rachel Derber, Ariana Lamb, Jessica Miller, Kate DiFelice, Kate Kaczmarek, Faye McGrath, Crystal Nicodemus, Cassandra Phillips, Sonam Tamang, Ariel Velez, Cindy Zhan, and I.M. Cogito

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Methodology

Acting takes a certain amount of time, because of a necessary bare minimum of internal information processing together with the time for external stimuli to be transduced into internal signals and for muscles to contract. Additional time, over and above that bare minimum, should be taken if some tasks require "thinking" and if "thinking" is a materially based form of internal information processing. If such additional time is indeed observed for tasks requiring greater information processing, then measurements of this additional time, and comparisons of its duration in males and females, can be used to determine whether males think.

Issues:

  1. Do tasks requring more information processing take more time?
  2. If they do, do males fail to take the additional time?
Predictions:
  1. Some tasks require more time in females
  2. Males will either not take more time on those tasks or will take less additional time than females