GENDER DIFFERENCES IN MENTAL ROTATION

Two experiments were carried out to compare the performance of male an d female students at different educational levels on tasks that requir ed mental rotation. Exp. 1 also compared their performance on an overt , male-typed version and a disguised, female-typed version of the same task. Amongst introductory undergraduate students, men performed sign ificantly better than women, but this difference was as pronounced on the disguised, female-typed version as on the overt, male-typed task. However, there was no sign of any gender difference on the overt task in advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students. The latter findin g was not replicated in Exp. 2, in which significant effects of gender regardless of the student's educational level were noted. Nevertheles s, the effect size was significantly smaller than that obtained for co mparable students tested on the same task during the 1970s. Taken toge ther, these results confirm that gender differences in at least some a spects of mental rotation may be abolished by educational experience a nd that gender differences in mental rotation have become smaller over the last 20 years. Such findings favor sociocultural explanations of gender differences in mental rotation rather than biological explanati ons.