Persistent gender differences in spatial ability, even in STEM experts

Developing a novel measure of non-rigid, ductile spatial skill

Non-rigid spatial thinking, or mental transformations where the distance between two points in an object changes (e.g., folding, breaking, bending), is required for many STEM fields but remains critically understudied. We developed and tested a non-rigid, ductile spatial skill measure based on reasoning about knots with 279 US adults (M = 30.90, SD 5.47 years; 76% White; 48% women). The resultant 54-item measure had good reliability (α = .88). Next, 147 US adults (M = 20.65, SD 2.80 years; 48% White; 56% women) completed existing spatial skills measures, the knot reasoning measure, a verbal skill measure, and surveys of current and childhood spatial activities. Knot reasoning performance was significantly, positively correlated with existing measures of spatial skill. Mental rotation and paper folding, but not bending, predicted knot reasoning task performance. We replicated work showing that men performed better than women on mental rotation and unexpectedly found that men also outperformed women on paper folding and knot reasoning, but not bending, tasks. Using structural equation modeling, we found several significant mediation effects. Men who reported less masculine-stereotyped spatial activity engagement had higher performance on the mental rotation and knot reasoning tasks. Women who reported greater engagement in feminine-stereotyped spatial activities had higher paper folding and backwards knot reasoning performance. Spatial skills did not differ among math-intensive STEM, non-math-intensive STEM, and non-STEM majors. The studies introduce a reliable measure of non-rigid, ductile string transformations and provide initial evidence of the role of gender and gendered spatial activities on non-rigid spatial skills.

Axial rotation affects the cognitive characteristics of spatial ability

Purpose

To test spatial ability in athletes with different axial rotation experience and analyze their behavioral data to explain the cognitive mechanisms of spatial ability in athletes.

Methods

Experiment 1: A total of 147 athletes were selected for the paper-and-pencil mental rotation test (MRT). The athletes were separated according to three sport types: open high-spatial (OH) sport, closed high-spatial (CH) sport, closed low-spatial (CL) sport. Spatial ability testing with a two-factor mixed experimental design of 3 (sport type) × 2 (stimulus type). Experiment 2: In this study, 47 players were selected for computerized mental rotation test, with a three-factor mixed experimental design of 3 (sport type) × 2 (angle: 45°, 90°) × 3 (rotational axis: left-right axis, up-down axis, and front-back axis). Repeated-measures ANOVA was performed to evaluate the data.

Results

(1) The CH group and OH group outperformed the CL group in the non-embodied task (all ps < 0.003) and the CH group was better than the other groups in the embodied and tasks (all ps < 0.008). (2) Under 45° rotational conditions, the reaction time (RT) for the left-right (LR) and up-down (UD) axes were shorter than that for the front-back (FB) axis (all ps < 0.026). However, under 90° conditions, the RT for FB < LR < UD, with superior accuracy and rotational speed for the FB axis than for the LR and UD axes (all ps < 0.034). (3) Male players from the CH and CL groups had shorter RTs than did those from the OH group at both angles (all ps < 0.047). For female players, the CH group presented a shorter RT than the OH and CL groups did at 90° (all ps < 0.006). (4) No sex difference was found for paper and pencil MRTs, but a male advantage existed only in the CL group for computerized MRTs (p = 0.005).

Conclusion

The motor skills associated with axial rotation could promote mental rotation performance and compensate for sex differences in mental rotation ability.

Locating the potential development of spatial ability in the Swedish national curriculum

There exists a plethora of studies that have related pupils' spatial ability to their academic achievement and problem-solving skills, especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. However, little is known about how spatial ability could be presented in a national curriculum. To increase the awareness and intention to develop pupils' spatial ability within the national curriculum, the compulsory curriculum document from the Swedish National Agency for Education which details all subject syllabi is examined and analysed using a content analysis method. The results show that two major dimensions could be used to locate the potential spatial ability development within the curriculum. The first is a visual dimension, which manifests as three different visual components: graphical, pictorial, and manufactured. The second is an epistemic dimension, which describes how pupils' different types of spatial knowledge can be nurtured, and inductively described as conceptual, procedural, and spatial citizenship knowledge. A three-by-three matrix framework is created based on the above dimensions and components. Policymakers and educators in Sweden, as well as in other countries, may draw insights from the framework created by this study and adapt it to educational practice, particularly in the realm of developing students' spatial ability through curriculum design and classroom instruction.

Metabotropic NMDA Receptor Signaling Contributes to Sex Differences in Synaptic Plasticity and Episodic Memory

Men generally outperform women on encoding spatial components of episodic memory whereas the reverse holds for semantic elements. Here we show that female mice outperform males on tests for non-spatial aspects of episodic memory ("what", "when"), suggesting that the human findings are influenced by neurobiological factors common to mammals. Analysis of hippocampal synaptic plasticity mechanisms and encoding revealed unprecedented, sex-specific contributions of non-classical metabotropic NMDA receptor (NMDAR) functions. While both sexes used non-ionic NMDAR signaling to trigger actin polymerization needed to consolidate long-term potentiation (LTP), NMDAR GluN2B subunit antagonism blocked these effects in males only and had the corresponding sex-specific effect on episodic memory. Conversely, blocking estrogen receptor alpha eliminated metabotropic stabilization of LTP and episodic memory in females only. The results show that sex differences in metabotropic signaling critical for enduring synaptic plasticity in hippocampus have significant consequences for encoding episodic memories.