Training Spatial Skills in Men and Women

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that even short-term video game training may transfer to other cognitive tasks. With the popularity of the Nintendo Wii with women, more of them might be exposed to the games that will increase their mental rotation skills. Because performance on mental rotation tests (MRT) has been linked to math performance in women, and thus may ultimately contribute to the under representation of women in STEM fields, it is important to continue to explore ways to decrease or eliminate the robust sex difference in mental rotation. The present study of 30 men and 30 women provides additional evidence that women may benefit from short-term (1 hour) training on either a Nintendo Wii™ or GameCube console to increase their mental rotation skills. One hour of video game training not only increased women's MRT scores to a level similar to men's scores, but also produced greater average improvement for women, even when controlling for experiential factors such as spatial and masculine childhood activities that could contribute to the sex difference in spatial ability.

Video Games for Well-Being: A Systematic Review on the Application of Computer Games for Cognitive and Emotional Training in the Adult Population

“…The length of the trainings proposed by studies included in this systematic review resulted to be rather heterogeneous, both in the number of sessions and in the number of weeks. In particular, the mean number of sessions was 10.1, ranging from 1 to 60 sessions, while the mean number of hours played was 13.5, ranging between 10 min and 50 h. As for cognitive training, a minimum of one session (e.g., Colzato et al, 2013 ; Cherney et al, 2014 ), and a maximum of 60 sessions (Kühn et al, 2014 ). The number of hours spent playing the different video games differed from study to study as well: from several minutes (Stroud and Whitbourne, 2015 ) to up to 50 h (Green et al, 2012 ; Chandra et al, 2016 ).…”

“…Mental spatial rotation (2 studies): Enhancement of mental spatial rotation abilities was reported after training with commercial exergames and driving-racing games, with a greater advance for women (Cherney et al, 2014 ). In contrast, no improvement was observed after training with other commercial games (one exergame and several action games), probably because of the limited number of participants (Dominiak and Wiemeyer, 2016 ).…”

“…The length of the training programs proposed by studies included in this systematic review resulted to be rather heterogeneous, both in the number of sessions and in the number of weeks: from a minimum of one session (e.g., Colzato et al, 2013 ; Cherney et al, 2014 ) to a maximum of 60 sessions (Kühn et al, 2014 ), and with gameplay time ranging from 10 min to 50 h (Green et al, 2012 ; Chandra et al, 2016 ). Since the duration and intensity of training has been reported to be a relevant variable, as it has a rather important impact on the accessibility and feasibility of the training itself (Hempel et al, 2004 ), future studies should address in detail such aspects of the training, for instance comparing the effectiveness of shorter trainings to longer ones in order to identify the minimum number of sessions to obtain an effective program.…”

Experimental But Not Sex Differences of a Mental Rotation Training Program on Adolescents

“…In relation to the sex differences found in MR visuospatial training, variable results have also been obtained. While Marulis et al’s (2007) meta-analysis indicated that the improvement in the performance of this ability is equivalent for both sexes, other studies performed on different age groups have suggested that the mean performance after a training program can be more pronounced in females, which leads to the disappearance of sex differences for such ability (e.g., Pleet, 1991 ; Boulter, 1992 ; De Lisi and Wolford, 2002 ; Sanz de Acedo Lizarraga and García Ganuza, 2003 ; Ehrlich et al, 2006 ; Wiedenbauer and Jansen-Osmann, 2008 ; Neubauer et al, 2010 ; Cherney et al, 2014 ).…”

“…Moreover, boys achieved a better performance in the MR task than girls, as a group. However, some studies have already shown that practice with video games can reduce or eliminate these sex differences in spatial skills, including MR ( Cherney, 2008 ; Cherney et al, 2014 ), and these findings encourage the motivation of females to have a greater interaction with this type of videogames.…”