Persistent gender differences in spatial ability, even in STEM experts

Tsigeman, Elina S.; Likhanov, Maxim; Budakova, Anna V.; Akmalov, Aydar; Sabitov, Ildar; Alenina, Evgeniia; Bartseva, Ksenia; Kovas, Yulia

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e15247

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…Questions inevitably arise about the extent to which sex differences in human learning reflect societal perceptions and expectations along with educational practices 15,16 . While these factors undoubtedly contribute in people, our results show that the female advantage for encoding non-spatial aspects of episodic memory is present when such considerations are absent, as was male advantage in earlier tests of episodic 'where' acquisition 21 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whether, and to what extent, the above patterns reflect sex differences in biological substrates as opposed to education and social expectations 15,16 is poorly understood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whether, and to what extent, the above patterns reflect sex differences in biological substrates as opposed to education and social expectations 15,16 is poorly understood. Evidence for a male advantage in spatial learning across several mammalian species strongly suggests that results in humans to some degree reflect evolutionarily conserved neurobiological mechanisms 17 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Metabotropic NMDA Receptor Signaling Contributes to Sex Differences in Synaptic Plasticity and Episodic Memory

Le,

Lauterborn,

Jia

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Men generally outperform women on encoding spatial components of episodic memory whereas the reverse holds for semantic elements. Here we show that female mice outperform males on tests for non-spatial aspects of episodic memory ("what", "when"), suggesting that the human findings are influenced by neurobiological factors common to mammals. Analysis of hippocampal synaptic plasticity mechanisms and encoding revealed unprecedented, sex-specific contributions of non-classical metabotropic NMDA receptor (NMDAR) functions. While both sexes used non-ionic NMDAR signaling to trigger actin polymerization needed to consolidate long-term potentiation (LTP), NMDAR GluN2B subunit antagonism blocked these effects in males only and had the corresponding sex-specific effect on episodic memory. Conversely, blocking estrogen receptor alpha eliminated metabotropic stabilization of LTP and episodic memory in females only. The results show that sex differences in metabotropic signaling critical for enduring synaptic plasticity in hippocampus have significant consequences for encoding episodic memories.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whether, and to what extent, the above patterns reflect sex differences in biological substrates as opposed to education and social expectations 15,16 is poorly understood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Metabotropic NMDA Receptor Signaling Contributes to Sex Differences in Synaptic Plasticity and Episodic Memory

Le,

Lauterborn,

Jia

et al. 2024

Preprint

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show abstract

“…This impact is also observed with gender differences using physical models [14]. Additionally, gender differences in spatial ability are commonly reported in STEM [15][16][17][18][19][20]. Finally, color blindness and other visual impairments can also influence the ability to decode information presented in a visualization [9,[21][22][23][24].…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 91%

Seeing Eye to Eye? Comparing Faculty and Student Perceptions of Biomolecular Visualization Assessments

Beckham,

Dries,

Hall

et al. 2024

Education Sciences

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While visual literacy has been identified as a foundational skill in life science education, there are many challenges in teaching and assessing biomolecular visualization skills. Among these are the lack of consensus about what constitutes competence and limited understanding of student and instructor perceptions of visual literacy tasks. In this study, we administered a set of biomolecular visualization assessments, developed as part of the BioMolViz project, to both students and instructors at multiple institutions and compared their perceptions of task difficulty. We then analyzed our findings using a mixed-methods approach. Quantitative analysis was used to answer the following research questions: (1) Which assessment items exhibit statistically significant disparities or agreements in perceptions of difficulty between instructors and students? (2) Do these perceptions persist when controlling for race/ethnicity and gender? and (3) How does student perception of difficulty relate to performance? Qualitative analysis of open-ended comments was used to identify predominant themes related to visual problem solving. The results show that perceptions of difficulty significantly differ between students and instructors and that students’ performance is a significant predictor of their perception of difficulty. Overall, this study underscores the need to incorporate deliberate instruction in visualization into undergraduate life science curricula to improve student ability in this area. Accordingly, we offer recommendations to promote visual literacy skills in the classroom.

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Exploring the Impact of Digital Building Blocks on Spatial Self-efficacy in Adults of Different Genders

Wang,

Chen

2024

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Persistent gender differences in spatial ability, even in STEM experts

Cited by 9 publications

References 69 publications

Metabotropic NMDA Receptor Signaling Contributes to Sex Differences in Synaptic Plasticity and Episodic Memory

Metabotropic NMDA Receptor Signaling Contributes to Sex Differences in Synaptic Plasticity and Episodic Memory

Seeing Eye to Eye? Comparing Faculty and Student Perceptions of Biomolecular Visualization Assessments

Exploring the Impact of Digital Building Blocks on Spatial Self-efficacy in Adults of Different Genders

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