Influence of the stimulus material on gender differences in a mental-rotation test
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Influence of the stimulus material on gender differences in a mental‑rotation test Martina Rahe1 · Vera Ruthsatz1 · Claudia Quaiser‑Pohl1 Received: 9 July 2020 / Accepted: 9 November 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Gender differences in mental-rotation tests with cube figures as rotational material are well examined and robust. Besides biological or socialization factors, task characteristics could partly be responsible for men’s advantage in mental rotation. Therefore, we investigated in two studies the influence of different rotational materials on the gender differences in mentalrotation performance. In the first study, 134 undergraduate students (89 women, 45 men) participated using a mental-rotation test with either cube or pellet figures. Significant gender differences in favour of men but no interaction of gender and material were found. In the second study, 189 undergraduate students (110 women, 79 men) solved a mental-rotation test with either male or female-stereotyped objects. Significant gender differences appeared only when male-stereotyped objects were used as rotational material, but not for female-stereotyped material. A significant interaction of gender and material appeared. Hence, some rotational objects seem to have an influence on participants’ mental-rotation performance and the gender differences in this task while others do not affect performances of women and men.
Introduction People use spatial abilities in everyday life to navigate, orientate themselves, or identify objects from different perspectives. Linn and Petersen (1985) suggested classifying spatial abilities into three categories: spatial perception, mental rotation, and spatial visualization. Regarding gender differences in spatial abilities, Voyer et al. (1995) found the largest effect sizes for the mental-rotation category. Mental rotation is defined as the ability to rotate two- or three-dimensional objects rapidly and accurately in one’s mind (Shepard and Metzler 1971). According to Uttal et al. (2013, see also Newcombe and Shipley 2015) spatial abilities are categorised into intrinsic or extrinsic information (Chatterjee 2008; Kozhevnikov and Hegarty 2001) and static or dynamic tasks (Chatterjee 2008; Kozhevnikov et al. 2005). Thus, mental rotation is a dynamic and intrinsic task (Uttal et al. 2013). Men outperform women especially in the paper-andpencil mental-rotation test (MRT, Vandenberg and Kuse 1978). Reasons for the gender differences are assumed to be genetically (Quinn and Liben 2014), hormonally (Alexander * Martina Rahe rahe@uni‑koblenz.de 1
Institute of Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, Universitaetsstrasse 1, 56070 Koblenz, Germany
and Son 2007; Grimshaw et al. 1995), socialization factors (Moè and Pazzaglia 2006), or task characteristics (Collins and Kimura 1997; Gauthier et al. 2002). Task characteristics could be the rotational axis (Gauthier et al. 2002), time limits (Voyer 2011), the difficulty of the test (Collins and Kimura 1997
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