Mental rotation performance in primary school age children: are there gender differences in chronometric tests?

Autor/inn/en	Jansen, Petra; Schmelter, Andrea; Quaiser-Pohl, Claudia; Neuburger, Sarah; Heil, Martin
Titel	Mental rotation performance in primary school age children: are there gender differences in chronometric tests? Gefälligkeitsübersetzung: Mentale Rotationsleistung im Grundschulkindern. Gibt es geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede in chronometrischen Tests?
Quelle	In: Cognitive development, 28 (2013) 1, S. 51-62 PDF als Volltext Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; gedruckt; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0885-2014
DOI	10.1016/j.cogdev.2012.08.005
Schlagwörter	Kognition; Kognitionspsychologie; Kognitive Leistung; Räumliche Wahrnehmung; Gehirn; Grundschule; Kind; Kognition; Sportpsychologie; Neuropsychologie; Rotation; Kind; Grundschule; Gehirn; Rotation; Sportpsychologie; Neuropsychologie; Grundschulalter
Abstract	In contrast to the well documented male advantage in psychometric mental rotation tests, gender differences in chronometric experimental designs are still under dispute. Therefore, a systematic investigation of gender differences in mental rotation performance in primary-school children is presented in this paper. A chronometric mental rotation task was used to test 449 second and fourth graders. The children were tested in three separate groups each with different stimulus material (animal drawings, letters, or cube figures). The results show that chronometric mental rotation tasks with cube figures - even rotated in picture plane only - were too difficult for children in both age groups. Further analyses with animal drawings and letters as stimuli revealed an overall gender difference in response time (RT) favoring males, an increasing RT with increasing angular disparity for all children, and faster RTs for fourth graders compared to second graders. This is the first study which has shown consistent gender differences in chronometric mental rotation with primary school aged children regarding reaction time and accuracy while considering appropriate stimuli. Verf.-Referat.
Erfasst von	Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft, Bonn
Update	2014/4