Current textbooks report that men's visual-spatial skills are superior to w
omen's. However, the research is not consistent with this sweeping generali
zation. We hypothesized that sex differences would be more pronounced on "i
mpossible problems" (mirror images) than possible rotations. We also hypoth
esized that males' performance would be adversely affected by visual interf
erence, whereas females' performance would be adversely affected by auditor
y interference. Ninety-five college students (25 males, 70 females) viewed
images of a train station from various perspectives, including some that we
re impossible rotations of the original image. There were no sex difference
s in accuracy or response time on the possible rotation problems, but males
were more accurate than females on impossible problems. Neither auditory n
or visual interference affected accuracy. The alleged sex difference in men
tal rotation problems is largely due to the use of problems that are not ac
tually mental rotation problems. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights
reserved.