Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Lethbridge, 4401 University Drive, Lethbridge, AB, T1K 3M4, Canada.
Department of Kinesiology and Sport Management, Texas Tech University, Box 43011, Lubbock, TX, 79409-3011, USA.
Exp Brain Res. 2020 Oct;238(10):2269-2277. doi: 10.1007/s00221-020-05894-9. Epub 2020 Jul 27.
Several tests of mental rotation ability have been used to investigate its development and the origins of sex differences. One of the most used tests is the mental rotation test (MRT) by Vandenberg and Kuse. A limitation of the MRT is that it is a pen-and-paper test with 2D images of 3D objects. This is a challenge to the ecological validity of the MRT because mental rotation typically involves physical 3D objects that are also physically manipulated. The purpose of the present study was to compare mental rotation ability as evaluated by the MRT to three new tasks with physical objects (toy bricks) that were physically manipulated. The different tasks allowed us to vary the processing demands on mental rotation while standardizing other aspects of the tasks. Fifty-nine females and twenty-eight males completed the LMR and HMR conditions (low- and high-mental rotation demands, respectively) of the brick building task (BBT), a visual search task, and the MRT. As demands on mental rotation for the BBT increased, performance decreased and a sex difference, with males outperforming females, increased. There were correlations between all tasks, but they were larger between the versions of the BBT with the MRT. The results suggest that spatial skill is an assembly of interrelated subskills and that the sex difference is sensitive to the demands on mental rotation and dimensionality crossing. The benefits of the BBT are that it is ecologically valid, avoids dimensionality crossing, and the demands on mental rotation can be manipulated.
已经有几项心理旋转能力测试被用于研究其发展和性别差异的起源。其中最常用的测试之一是由 Vandenberg 和 Kuse 提出的心理旋转测试（MRT）。MRT 的一个局限性在于它是一种纸笔测试，使用的是 3D 对象的 2D 图像。这对 MRT 的生态有效性提出了挑战，因为心理旋转通常涉及物理的 3D 对象，并且还需要进行物理操作。本研究的目的是将 MRT 评估的心理旋转能力与三个新的物理对象（玩具积木）的任务进行比较，这些任务涉及物理操作。不同的任务允许我们在标准化任务的其他方面的同时，改变心理旋转的处理需求。59 名女性和 28 名男性完成了积木搭建任务（BBT）、视觉搜索任务和 MRT 的 LMR 和 HMR 条件（分别为低和高心理旋转需求）。随着 BBT 对心理旋转的需求增加，表现下降，并且性别差异（男性表现优于女性）也随之增加。所有任务之间都存在相关性，但 BBT 与 MRT 的版本之间的相关性更大。研究结果表明，空间技能是一组相互关联的子技能，性别差异对心理旋转和维度交叉的需求很敏感。BBT 的优势在于它具有生态有效性，避免了维度交叉，并且可以对心理旋转的需求进行操作。
