Is the gender difference in mental rotation disappearing?

Masters, Mary Soares; Sanders, Barbara

doi:10.1007/bf01067434

Cited by 306 publications

(168 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…In the visuospatial domain, one study (Lejbak et al 2011) observed that men outperformed women in the n-back task. This finding agrees with several studies that have reported that men are superior to women in diverse visuospatial tasks (for meta-analytic studies see Masters and Sanders 1993;Voyer et al 1995). Sex differences in these studies were only examined in young adults; thus, the possibility of a steadier pattern of working memory across adulthood remains unexplored with the n-back task.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

The decline of verbal and visuospatial working memory across the adult life span

Cansino

Hernández-Ramos

Estrada-Manilla

et al. 2013

AGE

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It has been well established that working memory abilities decrease with advancing age; however, the specific time point in the adult life span at which this deficit begins and the rate at which it advances are still controversial. There is no agreement on whether working memory declines equally for visuospatial and verbal information, and the literature disagrees on how task difficulty may influence this decay. We addressed these questions in a lifespan sample of 1,500 participants between 21 and 80 years old. The n-back task was used, with letters and circles presented at different positions around an imaginary circle, to evaluate working memory in the verbal and visuospatial domains, respectively. The participants' task was to judge whether the current stimulus matched a stimulus that was shown n trials prior. Both domains were evaluated in two levels of difficulty: 1-back and 2-back. The comparison across decades showed that discrimination in the visuospatial and 1-back tasks started to decline earlier in women than in men; however, discrimination was equal between the sexes in the verbal and 2-back tasks. Performance on tasks in the visuospatial domain exhibited more pronounced decline than in those in the verbal domain. The rate of decline in working memory accuracy was superior in 2-back tasks than in 1-back tasks, independent of the domain. These results revealed that the effects of aging on working memory are less dependent on the type of information and more reliant on the resources demanded by the task.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

The decline of verbal and visuospatial working memory across the adult life span

Cansino

Hernández-Ramos

Estrada-Manilla

et al. 2013

AGE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Experiment 1 results did not replicate the commonly reported sex finding with men outperforming women in rotation rate while men were still more accurate than women. Thus, our findings relating to performance on mental rotation did show a sex difference, but this difference was not as robust as the literature suggests (Collins & Kimura, 1997;Linn & Petersen, 1985;Masters & Sanders, 1993;Voyer et al, 1995). The idea of other individual differences contributing to the difference in mental rotation performance becomes more important.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 38%

“…Not uncommonly, men mentally rotate faster than women (Linn & Petersen, 1985;Lippa, Collaer, & Peters, 2010;Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974;Masters & Sanders, 1993;Peters, 2005;Resnick, 1993;Richardson, 1994;Voyer, Voyer, & Bryden, 1995) although accuracy is often comparable (Goldstein, Haldane, & Mitchell, 1990;Kail et al, 1979;Voyer & Bryden, 1990). In reality this male advantage may be more ethereal.…”

Section: Mental Rotation Taskmentioning

confidence: 99%

Framing the figure: Mental rotation revisited in light of cognitive strategies

Bilge

Taylor

2016

Mem Cogn

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The mental rotation literature commonly reports a sex difference, almost always favoring men. Two strategies have been proposed in the literature to account for this difference: holistic and piecemeal. However, there is great variability in rotation performance suggesting other possible contributing factors. This study investigated the effects of stimuli characteristics and habitual spatial thinking on mental rotation performance. In three experiments, participants completed a mental rotation task with two modifications: (1) 3-D figures were presented with their cut versions to promote piecemeal strategy, and (2) block figures were either presented within a frame or none, in light of reference framework model or perceptual grouping model. Overall, whole figures generated faster responses than cut figures and this was more pronounced with greater angular disparity. Shape or the presence of a frame affected rotation performance. Having a frame seemed to impede overall rotation, especially for cut figures, supporting an object-based reference frame. However, a 3-D frame did not have the same effect, possibly suggesting the unitary configuration idea. Men rotated more accurately than women, but still sex was not as robust as it was suggested in the literature. Interestingly, there were similarities between possible strategy use and habitual spatial thinking. People who were categorized as having landmark-centered representations and who preferred verbal directions showed a pattern suggesting the use of a piecemeal strategy, and surveycentered representations and map preference seemed to reflect a holistic strategy.

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“…In addition, it is important to include the effects of the students' innate abilities in spatial assignments (Guillot et al; Hegarty et al; Khot et al) given that generic differences have been observed between men and women in which men obtain higher scores in mental rotation tasks (Masters & Sanders, 1993).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning Human Anatomy Using Three-Dimensional Models Made from Real-Scale Bone Pieces: Experience with the Knee Joint among Pre-Service Biology Teachers

Lizana

Merino

Bassaber³

et al. 2015

Int. J. Morphol.

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SUMMARY: This study aims to assess the efficiency of using real-scale knee models to learn about the locomotor system. Participants included a total of thirty-nine second year students in a Human Anatomy class of a Biology Teaching course. One week before the intervention, a pre-test was administered to assess the students' prior knowledge. The pre-service biology teachers were provided with a real-scale plaster model of a knee bone and were subsequently required to identify and create their own model of bone, joint and muscle elements. At the end of the intervention, a post-test was performed and opinion survey, in addition to a comparison with other locomotor system structures (four images: knee joint, muscular component of lower limb, shoulder joint and pelvic bone). Students' scores increased significantly in relation to the pre-test, both among the total sample (P=0.000) and between sub-groups divided according to participant gender (male P=0.0021; female P=0.0005) as well as compared to other structures (P<0.05). Furthermore, the pre-service biology teachers showed significant increases in their scores on a Likert-type opinion survey, indicating that these types of interventions promote their motivation for the course (89.2%) as well as their learning (97.8%) and would be advisable for future students (95.5%). The results show that the use of real-scale models and associated work fosters student motivation and enhances the learning of human anatomy.

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Is the gender difference in mental rotation disappearing?

Cited by 306 publications

References 31 publications

The decline of verbal and visuospatial working memory across the adult life span

The decline of verbal and visuospatial working memory across the adult life span

Framing the figure: Mental rotation revisited in light of cognitive strategies

Learning Human Anatomy Using Three-Dimensional Models Made from Real-Scale Bone Pieces: Experience with the Knee Joint among Pre-Service Biology Teachers

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