Why do boys prefer cars and girls prefer dolls? The role of specific attributes of toys in sextypical toy preferences.

Girls favour toys such as dolls, whereas boys favour vehicles and construction toys. These sex differences in children's toy interests have been
extensively documented in developmental literature (e.g. Connor & Serbin, 1977) and have been observed in infants as young as 12 months of age
(e.g. Jadva et al., 2010). These are considered by many to result from cognitive mechanisms and learning associated with gender socialisation (e.g.
Caldera et al., 1989; Carter & Levy, 1988). However, studies on toy-preferences in non-human primates (e.g. Alexander & Hines, 2002) as well as in
patients with endocrine disorders (e.g. Pasterski et al., 2005) suggest that sex dimorphic toy preferences may actually reflect basic neurobiological
differences between sexes. Following this line of research, it has been proposed that sex-typical toy choices are likely to result from basic
perception/action differences between males and females such as boys' preference for propulsive motion and girls' preference for faces over
mechanical stimuli (e.g. Williams & Pleil, 2008). In my PhD I would like to test this theory, by checking whether manipulating the attributes of toys linked
to these basic perceptual/action preferences (e.g. using cars without or with static wheels; dolls with reduced facial features) affects sex-typical
interests of children. I would also like to test infants' preferences for a wider scope of motion patterns characterising objects of play (e.g. rocking,
bouncing, spinning).