Perception of Horizontality by Male and Female College Students

Abstract

Understanding of the principle of horizontality was tested by having 314 university students draw the water surface on pictures of tilted bottles. Adults appear to have difficulty with this task and females performed much more poorly than males.

Investigating the orientation effect on the water-level task: Who? When? and Why?

“…Only female subjects, however, made significantly larger errors on the larger angle; that is, only female subjects displayed the orientation effect. Noting that the tabular data of two earlier studies similarly suggested a Gender X Orientation interaction of this sort (Kelly & Kelly, 1977;Rebelsky, 1964), we speculated that the male advantage in spatial perception abilities may be involved. However, when we ran a nonphysical version of the task, the accuracy of both genders was affected by the orientation manipulation (Study 2), a finding consistent with other reports of male subjects also displaying the orientation effect (e.g., McAfee & Proffitt, 1991;Morris, 1971;Walker & Krasnoff, 1978;Wittig& Allen, 1984).…”

“…The variable that most clearly predicts success on the task is knowledge of the physical principle that the surface of a liquid is invariantly horizontal, sometimes referred to as the invariance principle . Subjects who can articulate or identify the principle typically draw water lines that are closer to horizontal (Kalichman, 1989; Kelly & Kelly, 1977; Liben & Golbeck, 1984; Myer & Hensley, 1984; Robert & Morin, 1993; Thomas & Jamison, 1975; Thomas & Lohaus, 1993; Vasta et al, 1993; Wittig & Allen, 1984), and more male than female subjects generally know the principle (Kalichman, 1989; Liben & Golbeck, 1984; Thomas & Jamison, 1975; Thomas & Lohaus, 1993; Vasta et al, 1993; Wittig & Allen, 1984). However, when knowledge of the invariance principle is controlled—such as by using a “nonphysical” version of the task in which subjects are simply instructed to draw horizontal lines across tilted rectangles (Liben & Golbeck, 1980, 1986)—the gender difference is not entirely eliminated (Vasta et al, 1993).…”

Effect of Giftedness, Sex, and Bottle Shape on Hearing Impaired Adolescents’ Performance on the Water Line Task

“…The measure for assessing each subjects' perception of liquid horizontality was a paper and pencil test with a series of drawings of 24 bottle shapes: 12 identical rectangular bottle shapes, and 12 identi- Similar paper and pencil measures have been used in numerous investigations of the Piagetian horizontality principle ( e g , Morris, 1971;Williamson & Reynolds, 1973;Kelly & Kelly, 1977, 1978; Thomas & Jamison, 1975;Walker & Krasnoff, 1978;DeLisi, 1983). The task meets Piaget's (1977) and Piaget and Inhelder's (1956) criterion for an operational definition of the horizontal coordinate, namely that the child demonstrate that he or she is able to coordinate a movable substance (like water) with a visible fixed reference frame.…”

“…Specifically, sex differences have been reported with the adult population (Morris, 1971 ;Rebelsky, 1964;Williamson & Reynolds, 1973), college students (Kelly & Kelly, 1977;1978a;Thomas & Jamison, 1975;Thomas, Jamison & Hummel, 1973;Walker & Krasnoff, 1978) and elementary and junior high school-level children (Kelly & Kelly, 1978b). These studies consistently indicate that females, in general, have more trouble with the general concept of liquid horizontality, have larger error scores as the angle of tilt is increased, and experience more difficulty verbally stating the principle of horizontality.…”

“…The liquid horizontality test modification and the scoring criteria for the drawing test were identical to those described in detail elsewhere (Kelly & Kelly, 1977, 1978a. Accordingly, the water line drawn for each bottle position had to be within five degrees (5') of the horizontal in order to be correct.…”