Influence of rotational axis and gender-stereotypical nature of rotation stimuli on the mental-rotation performance of male and female fifth graders

Abstract

The male advantage in the mental rotation of two- or three-dimensional objects in mind is well documented across various age groups. The current study examined the influence of task characteristics on this gender difference by comparing the mental rotation performance of 148 fifth-grade boys and girls in three stimulus conditions (male-stereotyped objects, female-stereotyped objects, Shepard and Metzler's cube figures) and two rotational-axis conditions (rotations in picture plane only vs. rotations in depth). In line with the hypotheses, boys slightly outperformed girls in the in-depth condition, but not in the picture-plane condition. Unexpectedly, however, boys tended to outperform girls in the female-objects task. Overall, results suggest that rotational axis is more influential in determining the gender difference than the stereotyped nature of the stimuli. Findings are discussed with regard to the influence of working memory on mental rotation. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.