Perception of the horizontal and vertical in tangible displays: minimal gender differences

A study is reported of gender differences in a haptic version of three Piag etian tests that assess understanding of Euclidian space, A raised-line dra wing kit was used both for subject responses and for production of stimuli. To test understanding of the horizontal, subjects felt pictures of a jar a t four tilts and were asked to draw the water line. Two methods were used t o examine understanding of the vertical. First, subjects drew a hanging ele ctrical cord and light bulb, attached to the ceiling of a bus, parked on hi lls of four different angles. Subsequently, subjects drew telephone poles ( represented by a single line) on hills of four different angles. In the jar task, males and females showed comparable performance, both groups showing large errors. Judgments of the vertical were very similar for males and fe males in the bus task, but errors diminished considerably for both genders when subjects drew telephone poles on hills, it is suggested that better ju dgments of the vertical in the pole task probably derive from the use of bo dy-centered spatial reference information.