Performance differences between adolescent boys and girls assigned four visual-spatial skills tasks

This study compares the performance of 64 adolescent boys and 42 adolescent girls aged from 15 to 17 on four visual-spatial skills tasks. The administ rative conditions of these computerized tasks are highly standardized. Thre e of these tasks, Spatial Visualization, Perception and Spatial Relations, are taken from the Computerized Aptitude Test (CAT-A) for adolescents and a dults, whereas the fourth task is an adaptation for adolescents of the subt est Puzzle of the Computerized Aptitude Test (CAT-I) for infants. The depen dent variables are the average success scores and the speed of execution sc ores derived from latency times in a group of the best scores for each of t he four tasks. The results show that the adolescent boys are more successfu l at the Spatial Visualization and Spatial Relations tasks, On the whole, t he boys and the girls showed a comparable speed of success, except in the S patial Relations subtest, where the girls were much faster. The observed di fferences are interpreted as reflecting the better strategies adopted by th e boys to solve mental rotation tasks.