Cherney Isabelle D, Jagarlamudi Kavita, Lawrence Erika, Shimabuku Nicole
Department of Psychology, Creighton University, Omaha, NE 68154, USA.
Percept Mot Skills. 2003 Jun;96(3 Pt 2):1062-70. doi: 10.2466/pms.2003.96.3c.1062.
Past research has shown that men score significantly higher than women on mental rotation tests. The present study examined the effects of a prior exposure to a mental rotation task, i.e., adapted Cube Comparison test, and to three-dimensional objects, i.e., Legos, on the performance on the Mental Rotation Test. 113 men and women were randomly divided into three conditions: control, exposure, or detailed instructions. On average, men outperformed women. Further analyses showed that sex differences were significant in the control condition but not in the other two, suggesting that a cuing effect may explain some of the robust sex differences in visuospatial tasks.
