CAN SPATIAL TRAINING ERASE THE GENDER DIFFERENCES ON THE WATER-LEVEL TASK

Spatial training has been only modestly effective at improving the per formance of adolescents and adults on the water-level task. Based on p revious findings with the task, a self-discovery training procedure wa s developed that involved having participants proceed from easier to m ore difficult problems along a dimension of increasingly greater compe ting perceptual cues. The training was effective in (a) eliminating th e gender differences on the drawing task, and (b) significantly improv ing females' knowledge of the physical (invariance) principle, althoug h not to the level of males. Training effects did not transfer to a re lated spatial task.