Voyer Daniel, Voyer Susan D, Saint-Aubin Jean
Department of Psychology, University of New Brunswick, PO Box 4400, Fredericton, NB, Canada, E3B 5A3.
School of Psychology, Université de Moncton, Moncton, NB, Canada.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2017 Apr;24(2):307-334. doi: 10.3758/s13423-016-1085-7.
Visual-spatial working memory measures are widely used in clinical and experimental settings. Furthermore, it has been argued that the male advantage in spatial abilities can be explained by a sex difference in visual-spatial working memory. Therefore, sex differences in visual-spatial working memory have important implication for research, theory, and practice, but they have yet to be quantified. The present meta-analysis quantified the magnitude of sex differences in visual-spatial working memory and examined variables that might moderate them. The analysis used a set of 180 effect sizes from healthy males and females drawn from 98 samples ranging in mean age from 3 to 86 years. Multilevel meta-analysis was used on the overall data set to account for non-independent effect sizes. The data also were analyzed in separate task subgroups by means of multilevel and mixed-effects models. Results showed a small but significant male advantage (mean d = 0.155, 95 % confidence interval = 0.087-0.223). All the tasks produced a male advantage, except for memory for location, where a female advantage emerged. Age of the participants was a significant moderator, indicating that sex differences in visual-spatial working memory appeared first in the 13-17 years age group. Removing memory for location tasks from the sample affected the pattern of significant moderators. The present results indicate a male advantage in visual-spatial working memory, although age and specific task modulate the magnitude and direction of the effects. Implications for clinical applications, cognitive model building, and experimental research are discussed.
视觉空间工作记忆测量在临床和实验环境中被广泛使用。此外，有人认为男性在空间能力上的优势可以用视觉空间工作记忆中的性别差异来解释。因此，视觉空间工作记忆中的性别差异对研究、理论和实践具有重要意义，但尚未得到量化。本荟萃分析量化了视觉空间工作记忆中性别差异的大小，并研究了可能调节这些差异的变量。该分析使用了从98个样本中抽取的180个效应量，这些样本的平均年龄在3岁至86岁之间，样本来自健康的男性和女性。对整个数据集使用多层次荟萃分析来考虑非独立的效应量。数据还通过多层次和混合效应模型在单独的任务亚组中进行分析。结果显示男性有微小但显著的优势（平均d = 0.155，95%置信区间 = 0.087 - 0.223）。除了位置记忆任务出现女性优势外，所有任务都显示男性有优势。参与者的年龄是一个显著的调节因素，表明视觉空间工作记忆中的性别差异首先出现在13 - 17岁年龄组。从样本中去除位置记忆任务会影响显著调节因素的模式。目前的结果表明男性在视觉空间工作记忆方面有优势，尽管年龄和特定任务会调节效应的大小和方向。文中还讨论了对临床应用、认知模型构建和实验研究的启示。
