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International Conference on Spatial Cognition

Spatial Cognition 2012: Spatial Cognition VIII pp 220–229Cite as

Influence of Rotational Axis and Gender-Stereotypical Nature of Rotation Stimuli on the Mental-Rotation Performance of Male and Female Fifth Graders

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 7463))

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.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, Universitaetsstrasse 1, 56070, Koblenz, Germany

    Sarah Neuburger, Vera Heuser & Claudia Quaiser-Pohl

  2. Institute of Sports Science, University of Regensburg, Universitaetsstrasse 31, 93053, Regensburg, Germany

    Petra Jansen

Authors
  1. Sarah Neuburger
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  2. Vera Heuser
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  3. Petra Jansen
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  4. Claudia Quaiser-Pohl
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Computer Science, Albert-Ludwigs-University, Georges-Koehler-Allee 79, 79110, Freiburg, Germany

    Cyrill Stachniss

  2. Cognitive Neuroinformatics, University of Bremen, Enrique-Schmidt-Str. 5, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Kerstin Schill

  3. Department of Psychology and School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University, 2029 Sheridan Road, 60208-2710, Evanston, IL, USA

    David Uttal

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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Neuburger, S., Heuser, V., Jansen, P., Quaiser-Pohl, C. (2012). Influence of Rotational Axis and Gender-Stereotypical Nature of Rotation Stimuli on the Mental-Rotation Performance of Male and Female Fifth Graders. In: Stachniss, C., Schill, K., Uttal, D. (eds) Spatial Cognition VIII. Spatial Cognition 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7463. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32732-2_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32732-2_15

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-32731-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-32732-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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