Females Mental Rotation Study

Differences related to gender in spatial memory are most widely described and studied of cognitive sex differences. In 1974 Maccoby and Jacklin established that males usually perform better than females in measures of spatial performance, and this discovery has been constantly replicated in multiple studies covering various developmental stages (McGivern et al. 1997; Lewin et al. 2001) and spatial tasks (Dabbs Jr. et al. 1998; Driscoll et al. 2005).

Gender – whether there was a difference in performance between genders; used for comparison between male and female participants

In a quiet college classroom, participants were individually tested, with a seat positioned in view of a computer, and a seat on the side for the experimenter to sit. There were four tasks for the participants to complete, that were timed. The participants were told that if they were to make an error by naming the wrong color, to correct it and read the next color, as the experimenter would write how many errors

According to Hetherington and Parke (2002), studies of brain imaging identified that in female bilateralism there were greater amounts of blood flow. The male brain reflects greater lateralization attributing to a higher success rate in spatial tasks and mathematics.

The experiment done for this study was chosen from the “Perception” section of the Experiment Categories menu of PsychMate. The experiment selected was titled 1.3 Rotation of Mental Images. The experiment Rotation of Mental Images was conducted in the “Normal” mode. The expected Running Time for this experiment was 18 minutes.

The subjects were given mimeographed answer forms that were assumed to match the ones in front of the test takers. The subjects answer forms contained the correct answers so that they could keep track of the test takers scores. There were two tasks consisting of twenty-five questions each. The first consisted of household objects and was female oriented. The second consisted of mechanical objects and was male oriented. There was only one task completed during each experimental session chosen by the experimenter. The instructions given to each subject emphasized that a person’s performance is influenced by factors such as luck, ability, and effort. These factors were told to be kept in mind as well as the tone and hesitation in the test takers voice.

Purpose: The purpose of the experiment was to see if there was any correlation between the spatial presentation of stimuli and a change in comprehension and memorizing information.

a simple memory task, there was 100% success.) In an orientation activity, the children were then

After consent was given and the proceedings of the examination were briefly explained, EEG electrodes were attached to the subjects and they were given detailed instructions. Participants performed multiple tasks throughout the experiment, and the order of the tasks were counterbalanced across the participants. The participants were seated approximately two feet viewing distance and were instructed to press the right button mouse button if the center arrow was facing to the right and press the left button if the center arrow was facing to the left. Before the exam that was used for analysis, participants were given a practice block containing 30 trials where they were instructed to be as quick and accurate as possible. Then, the actual task was administered with 11 blocks of 30 trials. The participants received feedback on their performance. If a participant received a score of 75% or lower, a message of “Please try to be more accurate” was given. On the contrary, if the participant received above 90% a message of “Please try to respond faster” was displayed. However, if a participant was between 75% and 90%, the participant received a message that said “You’re doing a great job.”

Dr. John Nicholson, author of "A Question of Sex", states that men and women are different in the types of mental tasks they perform (120). Times magazine states in an article published in January 1992, that "Males excel at rotating three-dimensional objects in their head. Females prove better at reading the emotions of people in photographs" (121). The author of the article is

• Condition 1 – 25 participants were given a printed grid of 30 random words and given 2 minutes to memorise them. Participants were seated at a table/desk in a quiet room. After learning there is then a 2 minute pause after which participants were given a further 2 minutes in which to recall the words.

Then the participants and confederates were escorted to their testing cubicles. The experiment included a learning phase and two testing phases. The participants were shown and had to study twenty in-group (their ethnic group) or twenty out-group (different ethnic group) faces in the learning phase. Each face was shown for five seconds. After the learning phase, participants completed a memory test. The memory test included twenty new faces and twenty faces from the learning phase. The participant had to then decide if the face was an old or new face. After the first memory test, the participants then answered the following question: “How confident are you in your decision?” by clicking one of six boxes from fifty to one hundred percent. At the end of the task, the participants were distracted with a crossword puzzle. The experiment took the participants answer sheet and filled it out with the confederates answers. On the answer sheet, the confederate provided the opposite answer of the participant to ten faces and the others were marked as they both agreed on the same

The experiment consisted of 6 trials that contained words such as: sleep, bed, tired etc. The participants were asked to look at the rectangle on the screen before starting the trials. In the first trial, the participants were asked to press the “start trial” button because a fixation dot would appear in the middle of the screen. The participants were asked to stare at the computer until a sequence of words appeared, with each word was presented for one second. After a full sequence was presented, a set of buttons were shown, each labeled with a word. Some the words were on the list, and some were not. The participant’s task was to click or tap on the buttons to indicate which words were in the sequence. The sequence of words consisted of the actual words shown or related or unrelated words. For example, some trials consisted of all sleep related content to see if the participant would select items that were related or select items that were not in the sequence. After identifying the words that were shown in the sequence, they would receive feedback on the accuracy of their memory. After the participants were done

Participants could not correct mistakes in button presses. The experiment included two types of trials: some trials had an irrelevant speech background (a passage from Franz Kafka in German) and some had a quiet background. The order of background conditions Participants completed two blocks. Each block contained 30 trials.

No one would argue the fact that men and women are physically different. The physical differences are rather obvious and most of these can be seen and measured easily. Men, who are essentially built for physical confrontation and the use of force, usually have greater upper body strength, build muscle easily, have thicker skin, and mostly use the left side of their brain. Women on the other hand, have a higher percentage of body fat, and a wider pelvis. Women also have four times as many brain cells connecting the right and left side of their brain. This provides physical evidence that supports the observation that men rely easily and more heavily on their left brain to solve one problem one step at