The paper describes, compares and analyses the factors associated with mathematical abilities of Russian school students by examining the cerebral mechanisms underlying students' emotional perception. Learning and creativity processes of an individual are known to be profoundly influenced by the emotion evoking qualities of a perceived stimulus. On the other hand, sensory perception of the individuals may reflect their cognitive abilities. Studies both in Western and non-Western cultures have indicated sex differences in cognitive abilities, which have peculiarities through age course. By examining age and sex differences in emotions perception in children with high and average abilities in mathematics we hope to reveal the influence of cerebral mechanisms underlying the emotional information processing on the achievements in Mathematics. The present study investigates the possible differences in the development of the psycho- physiological mechanisms by comparing the accuracy of emotion recognition (AR), reaction times (RT) and cerebral lateralization (asymmetry coefficients) in boys and girls of different ages. The sample consisted of students of 11 to 17 year old, mostly of middle socio- economic status in an urban context. 28 pupils from public school and 41 pupils from special school for mathematically gifted children participated in the study. The stimuli used as actual test items consisted of a sentence spoken in positive (happy) and negative (anger) emotional tones of voice and neutral tone of voice by the professional actor who regularly participated in radio and television productions. The task of the subject was to identify the emotional tone; the answer and the time of subject's reaction were registered in protocol by computer program. The data obtained on recognition accuracy, time of reaction and school achievements in Mathematics were submitted to an analysis of variance (ANOVA General Factorial) and Linear Regression analysis (LRA). The connection of emotion recognition performance and mathematical competence of the children 11-17 years old has been found. The ANOVA has shown that the AR and RT significantly depend on the factor of "subjects' type". Children with high mathematical competence showed higher AR and faster RT; they had more pronounced left hemisphere advantage for emotions perception as compared with control group. Consideration of the gifted children group has revealed the factors "sex", "age", "ability degree" and the "emotion valence" to be significant for the emotional recognition performance. The achievements in Mathematics in gifted children has been shown to depend on RT, the lateralization of emotions' perception (children with higher achievements in Mathematics have the tendency to less values of asymmetry coefficient that indicates the less pronounced cerebral lateralization). Gender has been shown to be an important factor that influence the achievements in Mathematics in all age groups, girls having poorer abilities as compared to boys of the same age. The results of the LRA allow to predict the connection of the "degree of mathematical abilities" with emotions' perception that varies depending on sex and age of the children. Support by the RFH grant ? 01- 06-00267?.