Men and women are supposed to be like-minded when it comes to spatial perception. This is the latest finding from groundbreaking work by researchers at the Science Foundation's Irish Software Research Center called Lero. This is based at the University of Limerick in Ireland. Doctor Mark Campbell and Adam Toth presented using state-of-the-artEye tracking technologiesfound that the mental rotation abilities associated with spatial cognition do not have a male advantage.
Research results for men and women
Doctor Campbell says spatial perception, or our ability to navigate the environment, has been the battleground for researchers for almost 40 years. They claim that men have a significant performance advantage on tests of spatial perception, particularly the test of mental rotation. Investigating the cognitive abilities of individuals and players is a central goal of the Lero Esports Science Research Lab. It opened in 2019 and is the first of its kind in Ireland.
“Better performance on these tests is strongly associated with higher IQ and better performance in math subjects in schools and colleges,” explained Dr. Campbell.
His colleague, Dr. Toth, summarizes the results as follows: “So men are better than women? Well, no. Our study found that there is no male advantage in mental rotation skills. Increasing the duration of the test completely reduced the male performance advantage. This suggests that the so-called gender difference in mental rotation simply does not exist. This can be explained by other factors. “
New studies on spatial perception
The published research results have shown for the first time that both men and women often use different gaze strategies in cognitive tests to get the correct answer. In other words, men and women approach the task in different ways to achieve the same result.
The research paper is titled: “Examining sex differences, cognitive effort, strategies and performance using a computerized version of the mental rotation test using eye tracking.”
One hundred psychology and sports science students from the University of Limerick (UL) volunteered to take part in the study conducted by the researcherscarried out testreported. The 47 men and 53 women were in good health and had an average age of 23 years.
