Mw. Oboyle et al., THE INFLUENCE OF MIRROR REVERSALS ON MALE AND FEMALE PERFORMANCE IN SPATIAL TASKS - A COMPONENTIAL LOOK, Personality and individual differences, 18(6), 1995, pp. 693-699
O'Boyle and Hoff (Neuropsychologia, 25, 977-982,1987) reported that fe
males were faster and more accurate than mates at mirror-tracing the o
utline of random shapes. To account for this differential performance,
the authors advanced two alternative explanations. The first was a 'S
patial Stroop' effect which suggested that, because of their enhanced
spatial ability, males are especially disadvantaged in escaping the mi
sleading visual feedback provided by the mirror, resulting in slower a
nd less accurate tracings. The second was a 'manipulospatial' hypothes
is which suggested that the tracing advantage was related to female su
periority in fine-detailed motor control, and perhaps, differential pr
actice at performing skilled motor tasks in mirror-reversed contexts.
In the present study, two experiments were conducted to assess the rel
ative viability of these explanations. In Experiment 1, the WAIS-R Blo
ck Design task was performed within and outside the context of a mirro
r. This was done to determine if the observed female advantage was res
tricted to mirror-tracing per se, or generalizable to other manipulosp
atial tasks. In Experiment 2, a mental rotation task was performed wit
hin and outside the context of a minor. The latter was designed to rev
eal if the removal of the motor component would affect the obtained se
x difference. The present findings suggest that as long as some form o
f precision motor manipulation is required, females are superior to ma
les at mirror-reversed spatial tasks. However, when the motor componen
t is eliminated, a male performance advantage emerges in both normal a
nd mirror-reversed contexts, suggesting that the manipulospatial hypot
hesis is the more viable explanation.