Abstract
Past research has shown that men score significantly higher than women on mental rotation tests (e.g., Vandenberg & Kuse, 1978). The present study examined the effects of a prior exposure to another mental rotation task (i.e., adapted Cube Comparison test) and to three-dimensional objects (i.e., Legos) on the performance on the Mental Rotation Test (MRT). One hundred thirteen men and women were randomly divided into one of three conditions: control, exposure, or detailed instructions. On average, men outperformed women. Further analyses showed that gender differences were significant in the control condition, but not in the two other conditions, suggesting that a cueing effect may explain some of the robust sex differences in visual-spatial tasks.
Cherney,