GENDER DIFFERENCES IN VISUOSPATIAL PROCESSING - THE IMPORTANCE OF DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN PASSIVE STORAGE AND ACTIVE MANIPULATION

The study here reported investigates the hypothesis that gender differ ences in visuo-spatial abilities are mainly confined to active process ing tasks. Male and female participants were required to perform passi ve tasks involving the recall of previously memorised positions within matrices of different sizes, as well as active tasks in which they ha d to mentally follow a pathway in the same matrices. The results confi rmed that male superiority became evident as the active processing req uirements increased while only marginal gender difference was reported in passive tasks. To strengthen the specific role of the active-passi ve distinction in identifying gender differences, confounding factors such as type of material and use of verbal strategies were ruled out. These findings, in line with a number of studies on individual differe nces, highlight the importance of addressing visuo-spatial ability as a multicomponential cognitive function which entails different type of visuo-spatial processing or mechanisms (i.e., active processing and p assive storage of information) rather than as a unitary concept. (C) 1 998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.