Background. Recent research has suggested a unifactorial structure of spatial ability (SA). However, further studies are needed to replicate this finding in different populations. Objective. This study aims to explore the factorial structure of SA in samples of 921 Russian and 229 Chinese university students. Design. A gamified spatial abilities battery was administered to all participants. The battery consists of 10 different domains of SA, including 2D and 3D visualization, mental rotation, spatial pattern assembly, spatial relations, spatial planning, mechanical reasoning, spatial orientation, and spatial decision-making speed and flexibility. Results. The results of the factor analysis showed a somewhat different pattern for different samples. In the Russian sample, the unifactorial structure, shown previously in a large UK sample (Rimfeld et al., 2017), was replicated. A single factor explained 40% of the variance. In the Chinese sample two factors emerged: the first factor explained 26% of the variance and the second factor, including only mechanical reasoning and cross-sections tests, explained 14%. The results also showed that the Chinese sample significantly outperformed the Russian sample in five out of the 10 tests. Russian students showed better performance in only two of the tests. The effects of all group comparisons were small. The Factorial Structure of Spatial Abilities in Russian and Chinese Students 97 Conclusion. Overall, a similar amount of variance in the 10 tests was explained in the two samples, replicating results from the UK sample. Future research is needed to explain the observed differences in the structure of SA.
Background. Spatial ability (SA) has long been the focus of research in psychology, because it is associated with performance in science, technologies, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Research has shown that males consistently outperform females in most aspects of SA, which may partially explain the observed overrepresentation of male students seeking STEM degrees.Objective. This study examines sex and field of study (degree) differences in different aspects of spatial ability and its structure.Design. We assessed SA by using an on-line gamified battery, which included 10 spatial tests capturing 10 dimensions of spatial ability, among which were mental rotation, spatial visualization, spatial scanning, spatial reasoning, perspective-taking, and mechanical reasoning. The sample consisted of 882 STEM (55% males) and Humanities (20% males) university students in Russia.Results. Males outperformed females on all assessed components of SA with a small effect size (1-11%). We also found that students from STEM fields outperformed Humanities students on all SA subtests (effect size ranged from 0.2 to 7%). These differences by study choice were not fully explained by the observed over-representation of males in the STEM group. The results of the study suggested no interaction between sex and degree. In other words, on average, males outperformed females, irrespective of whether they were STEM or humanities students; and the STEM advantage was observed for both 38 E. A. Esipenko et al.males and females. The same unifactorial structure of SA was observed in the STEM and Humanities groups. Conclusion.Our results are consistent with previous research, suggesting sex and study field differences in SA. Longitudinal research is needed to explore the causal mechanisms underscoring these differences.
Background: Spatial ability (SA) was shown to be important for success in different fields, including STEM. Recent research suggested that SA is a unitary construct, rather than a set of related skills. However, it is not clear how individual differences in different facets of SA emerge, and how they relate to variance in general cognitive ability. Aims: The aim of the present study was threefold: 1) to examine the structure of SA testing nine theoretical models; 2) to explore the relation between 16 different facets of SA with general cognitive ability; and 3) to identify central facet(s) within the network of SA -with most links and/or strongest links to other facets. Sample: The study participants were 958 university students from Russia. Methods: The study used a comprehensive battery of 16 SA tests and a verbal ability measure. Results: Results supported previous research, suggesting moderate overlap between all SA facets. Factor analysis suggested several potential structures, with similar fit indices for five different theoretically driven models, including split into small-and large scale; partially independent manipulation, visualization and navigation facets. Confirmatory factor analysis, mediation and network analyses showed spatialThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
Event-linked brain potentials were studied in ten essentially healthy volunteers (six men, four women) aged 18-24 years. Subjects were presented with rare deviant and frequent standard visual stimuli in the standard odd-ball paradigm in conditions of active attention to stimulation and in conditions of distracted attention. Differences between deviant stimuli (50, 100, and 150 msec) and standard (200 msec) stimuli ranged from 50 to 150 msec. Negative difference waves (deviant stimulus with distracted attention minus control stimulus of the same duration) were seen at differences of 100 and 150 msec and these were most marked in the right temporal cortex 200-400 msec from stimulus onset. As this wave was seen in conditions of distracted attention, it appears to be a visual analog of mismatch negativity and reflects the process of the automatic detection of stimuli with deviant durations.
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