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| Research article summary (published 29 Jun 2009): |
Women match men when learning a spatial skill.
Full Abstract
Meta-analytic studies have concluded that although training improves spatial cognition in both sexes, the male advantage generally persists. However, because some studies run counter to this pattern, a closer examination of the anomaly is warranted. The authors investigated the acquisition of a basic skill (spatial selective attention) using a matched-pair two-wave longitudinal design. Participants were screened with the use of an attentional visual field task, with the objective of selecting and matching 10 male-female pairs, over a wide range (30% to 57% correct). Subsequently, 20 participants 17-23 years of age (selected from 43 screened) were trained for 10 hr (distributed over several sessions) by playing a first-person shooter video game. This genre is known to be highly effective in enhancing spatial skills. All 20 participants improved, with matched members of the male-female pairs achieving very similar gains, independent of starting level. This is consistent with the hypothesis that the learning trajectory of women is not inferior to that of men when acquiring a basic spatial skill. Training methods that develop basic spatial skills may be essential to achieve gender parity in both basic and complex spatial tasks.
Author information
Author/s: Spence, Ian (I); Yu, Jingjie Jessica (JJ); Feng, Jing (J); Marshman, Jeff (J);
Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ian.spence(-atsign-)utoronto.ca
Journal and publication information
Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Journal: Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition (J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn), published in United States. (Language: eng)
Reference: 2009-Jul; vol 35 (issue 4) : pp 1097-103
Dates: Created 2009/07/09; Completed 2009/08/25;
PMID: 19586273, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 8/25/2009, IMS Date: )
Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.
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