The space‐math link in preschool boys and girls: Importance of mental transformation, targeting accuracy, and spatial anxiety

Wong, Wai Keung

doi:10.1111/bjdp.12161

Cited by 14 publications

(26 citation statements)

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“…As male students are faced with the challenges of their first university-level physics course, the brain may accommodate the increases in science anxiety and balance the response to such challenges. In contrast, female students experience greater obstacles in STEM education 5,6,52 that can trigger anxiety as early as the preschool and elementary years [53][54][55] . The null female results may point to a lack of vulnerability, suggesting that their relatively higher STEM anxiety does not hinder salience-related central executive and self-referential processes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex differences in brain correlates of STEM anxiety

González

Bottenhorn

Bartley

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Professor, Department of Physics 34 Florida International University, AHC4 310 35 Modesto Maidique Campus 36 11200 SW 8 th Street 37 Miami, FL 33199 38 305.348.6737 (phone) 39 305.348.6700 (fax) 40 alaird@fiu.edu 41 42 43 † These authors contributed equally to this work. 44 45 46 1 ABSTRACT 47 48Anxiety is known to dysregulate the salience, default mode, and central executive networks of the human 49 brain, yet this phenomenon has not been fully explored across the STEM learning experience, where 50 anxiety can impact negatively academic performance. Here, we evaluated anxiety and large-scale brain 51 connectivity in 101 undergraduate physics students. We found sex differences in STEM-related and clinical 52 anxiety, with longitudinal increases in science anxiety observed for both female and male students. Sex-53 specific relationships between STEM anxiety and brain connectivity emerged, with male students 54 exhibiting distinct inter-network connectivity for STEM and clinical anxiety and female students 55 demonstrating no significant within-sex correlations. Anxiety was negatively correlated with academic 56 performance in sex-specific ways at both pre-and post-instruction. Moreover, math anxiety in male 57 students mediated the relation between default mode-salience connectivity and course grade. Together, 58 these results reveal complex sex differences in the neural mechanisms driving how anxiety is related to 59 STEM learning . 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 2 Today's universities and colleges are tasked with the challenge of developing novel strategies for 94 improving undergraduate academic performance and ensuring that students are prepared for successful 95 careers. In particular, emphasis is placed on enhancing student outcomes and generating enthusiasm for 96 the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. However, STEM students 97 encounter multiple, major-specific challenges, including intensive laboratory, project-based, and lecture-98 based coursework (Thiry et al., 2011), heightened classroom competition (Strenta et al., 1994 Gasiewski 99 et al., 2012), and academic challenges of STEM courses (Strenta et al., 1994; Rask, 2010). As such, many 100 students often struggle with STEM-related anxiety, which manifests as an unease, avoidance, or fear of 101 learning science or math topics. In particular, female STEM students, relative to their male counterparts, 102 are disproportionately affected by higher rates of STEM anxiety (Mallow, 1994; Brownlow et al., 2000; 103 Baloglu and Kocak, 2006; Mallow et al., 2010). This may be due to STEM-related barriers that adversely 104 impact achievement and performance (Kiefer and Sekaquaptewa, 2007; Nosek et al., 2009), including 105 stereotype threat (Shapiro and Williams, 2012), gender-based bias (Moss-Racusin et al., 2012), and lack of 106 non-stereotypical role models (Cheryan et al., 2011; Hernandez et al., 2018). ...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex differences in brain correlates of STEM anxiety

González

Bottenhorn

Bartley

et al. 2019

Preprint

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“…The article ‘The space‐math link in preschool boys and girls: Importance of mental transformation, targeting accuracy, and spatial anxiety’ by Wong was published in issue 35:2 of British Journal of Developmental Psychology ().…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corrigendum

2019

British J of Dev Psycho

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“…A more recent review of cognitive abilities also suggested a male advantages in some cognitive task from early childhood onwards (Miller & Halpern, 2014). Judging distances in space and projecting a trajectory with respect to a target require cognitive processes where males have shown an advantage (Uttal et al, 2013;Wong, 2017). Based on these results, we hypothesize that male participants will retain their upper hand in the virtual throwing task (alternative Hypothesis).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…This visuomotor processing may require cognitive abilities where adult males have tended to show an advantage (Miller & Halpern, 2014;Wong, 2017). For example, males have performed better in tasks involving spatial perception and mental rotation, although not in spatial visualization (Voyer et al, 1995).…”

Section: Performance Errormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the sensorimotor skill of accurate targeting comprises a variety of aspects that have previously led to different conclusions on potential gender disparities. Some studies pointed out that accurate targeting relies heavily on spatial analysis, including spatial orientation and estimating relative distance and velocity (Geary, 1995;Kimura & Hampson, 1994;Wong, 2017). A meta-analysis by Voyer et al (1995) concluded that males had an advantage in spatial perception and mental rotation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Intrinsic and extrinsic noise in motor skill acquisition

Zhang¹

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Research on human motor skill acquisition has typically examined mean and variance of performance metrics to evaluate learning processes. Skill has been equated with low variability to be reduced with practice. Continuing recent efforts, this thesis focused on the structure of movement variability, both in its distribution and temporal evolution, as a window to understand motor learning and control. While random components are assumed to arise from intrinsic and extrinsic noise, some of the overt behavioral variability is also structured and purposefully generated by the central nervous system. In this thesis motor skill acquisition is viewed as the strategic search for task solutions where intrinsic and extrinsic noise minimally impact task performance. Eight studies examined the role of noise in motor learning and control and used a target-oriented throwing task as testbed. Importantly, the task has redundancy with a solution manifold defining the set of solutions that achieve task success. The throwing task was experimentally controlled, modeled and rendered in a virtual environment to allow mathematically-based manipulations of the solution space to address detailed questions on the role of noise in motor control. Chapter 2 identified human strategies in task variations with different geometries of the result space showing that subjects' throwing movements exploited the task's redundancy to reduce the sensitivity of the ball release time to intrinsic noise. Chapter 3 revealed that when subject performed a sequence of discrete throwing movements, they merged the discrete actions into a rhythmic sequence that displayed stability, i.e. robustness with respect to noise, and achieved better task success. Based on these empirical and theoretical findings, two subsequent studies (Chapter 4-5) created interventions in the virtual environment that assisted subjects to suppress their noise and achieve better vi performance. System identification with stochastic state space models revealed that visual amplification of performance error led subjects to suppress their noise with extended practice. Adding noise to the time of ball release exerted "pressure" that lowered the timing errors and thereby improved task performance. Importantly, this benefit persisted even after removal of the manipulation. Chapter 6 explored how the central nervous system coordinates the variability in the multi-dimensional space of muscle activations. Using dimensionality reduction methods, the data revealed four muscle synergies that were invariant across subjects and sequentially supported the multi-joint throwing action. Chapter 7 and 8 tested the robustness of these finding in the virtual environment in a real implementation and in a "field study". The comparison between virtual and real performance showed that, even though mean performance in the real setup was better, the variability was modulated across practice in the same manner in both environments. Deploying a portable setup at the Museum of Science in Boston and testing a large coho...

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The space‐math link in preschool boys and girls: Importance of mental transformation, targeting accuracy, and spatial anxiety

Cited by 14 publications

References 115 publications

Sex differences in brain correlates of STEM anxiety

Sex differences in brain correlates of STEM anxiety

Corrigendum

Intrinsic and extrinsic noise in motor skill acquisition

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