Gender differences in accuracy and latency of performance on visual-spatial tasks

The focus of this study was to determine if there were gender differences in terms of accuracy and latency of performance on visual-spatial tasks. A second objective was to determine if there were gender differences in confidence in visual-spatial performance. The study was based on archival data collected for a larger scope research project and used with the permission of the owner of the dataset. The study included 80 healthy adult individuals (40 men and 40 women) between the ages of 18 and 44 recruited from the San Francisco Bay Area. Measures that were used for this study were three mental rotation tasks and three spatial visualization tasks. The data were analyzed using multiple analyses of variance and covariance, independent sample t-tests, nonparametric tests, and correlational analyses.; Findings indicated that there were no significant differences between men and women in terms of accuracy or latency of performance. There was a trend towards significance for confidence ratings on one of the spatial visualization tasks (Paper Folding), with men providing higher confidence ratings than women. Additionally, there were significant gender differences in terms of correlations between certain demographic characteristics and visual-spatial performance. There were also significant negative correlations between latency and accuracy for the total sample on the three mental rotation tasks and one positive correlation on a spatial visualization task (Form Board). There was a significant positive correlation between accuracy and confidence for the total sample on the three spatial visualization tasks, and a significant negative correlation between latency and confidence for the total sample on Cube Counting. Limitations of this study, directions for future research, and clinical implications were discussed. The importance of identifying gender similarities and within-gender variability as well as gender differences was highlighted.