Sex pencil-and-paper spatial tests were administered to 232 boys and 237 girls with an average age of 10 years. Results suggest that sex differences in spatial ability may emerge before adolescence, but they are not necessarily generalized at that time. (Author/RH)

The effect of perceptual speed on performance and paper-and-pencil measures of spatial ability is examined. Perceptual speed is defined as speed in comparing figures or symbols, scanning to find figures or symbols, or carrying out other very simple tasks involving visual perception. It was hypothesized that perceptual speed would have more…

Deficits in spatial abilities, particularly Mental Rotation (MR), may contribute to women's avoidance of areas of study (such as chemistry) that rely on MR. Those women who do succeed in chemistry may do so because they have MT skills that are on par with their male peers. We examined MR ability on 12 items from the Vandenberg and Kuse MR test…

Accuracy of pattern copying was studied in male and female 10-year-olds. Contrary to expectations, independent of the stimulus size, males benefited from spatial response cues whereas females did not. (Author/DB)

Investigates the possibility of self-selection in females entering the field of engineering and examines the link between mental rotation performance and performance in academic subjects for 51 male and 52 female students. Results indicate that there were sex differences favoring males in spatial ability tests but there were no significant…

Examined whether variations in performance of (n=396) engineering students on a measure of spatial visualization were related to prior spatial experiences and to the developmental period when the prior experiences occurred. One finding revealed nonacademic activities seemed to have the most positive significant relationship to spatial…

Two studies tested college students on the Piagetian water-level task and several crossbar tasks. Performance on a disembedded crossbar task was better than that on the water-level task, regardless of whether the symmetrical nature of the crossbar was emphasized. Men performed better than women. (BC)

Data from a 1990-91 sample of professional art school students who were given The Spatial Dimensionality Test showed significant sex-related differences with higher male mean scores on spatial abilities tasks. These findings failed to replicate the 1987 data from the same sample that showed no significant sex-related differences on the same test…

Sixteen intermediate level hearing-impaired students were examined on perceptions that still water remains invariantly horizontal regardless of container tilt. Similar to findings reported for older hearing-impaired students, Ss made more errors with the straight-sided than with the curve-sided containers. Males performed better than females on…

This study used a variation of Piaget and Inhelder's water level task and several cognitive complexity measures to test the predictions that cognitive complexity would relate positively to performance of the water level task and that males would perform better. The predictions were confirmed. Correlations for males and females differed.…

Studied the effects of peer collaboration on the acquisition of the understanding that water remains invariantly horizontal. Results from 69 female and 22 male college students show that peer collaboration did not lead to greater understanding than working alone, but that men and women talked about the problem differently and that the use of…

The hypotheses that deaf students would be more field dependent than hearing students and that their competence in communication skills would be related to field dependence were supported for a group of 77 male and 67 female deaf students at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. Stepwise multiple regression analyses of the data showed…

Data from a battery of spatial tests taken by children six to 18 years old indicate that a male advantage in spatial performance appears reliably by age 10, and that the magnitude of the advantage remains constant through age 18. (PCB)

This Study was conducted to determine if women in the sciences were as accurate in spatial abilities as male counterparts. An experiment was also conducted to find if an intervention would improve the visuo-spatial awareness of women as rapidly as men. Data indicated that while women tended to start at a lower level, they were able to learn…

Results suggest that (1) sex differences are found for some types of spatial ability but not others; (2) large sex differences are found only on measures of mental rotation; (3) smaller sex differences are found on measures of spatial perception; and (4) when sex differences are found, they can be detected across the life span. (Author/RH)