GENDER DIFFERENCES IN HORIZONTALITY AND VERTICALITY REPRESENTATION INRELATION TO INITIAL POSITION OF THE STIMULI

Research on gender differences in the ability to represent horizontali ty in the water-level task has suggested that failure in some women ma y be connected with responding while envisioning the upright container as shifting to a tilted position and holding liquid in motion, rather than imagining that the container has reached the tilted position and holds still liquid. The present experiment attempted to eliminate suc h faulty conceptualization by solely presenting containers that had al ready reached a stable, tilted position. College students of both sexe s were submitted either to the modified, static presentation of the wa ter-level task or to the standard, dynamic format using both upright a nd tilted positions. The subjects were also submitted to corresponding plumb-line tasks requiring verticality representation. In addition, t hey rated the vividness of their movement imagery. Contrary to predict ion, women's proficiency was not higher under the static format of the water-level and plumb-line tasks. However, as expected, men's achieve ment was independent from presentation format. Men surpassed women und er both static and dynamic formats. Finally, performance was not corre lated with movement imagery. Lack of a presentation effect on women's performance was attributed to the fact that a number of women presumed an element of motion when responding, even though stationary stimuli were shown.