Men are no better than women in spatial cognition – such as map reading – is the main finding of groundbreaking work by researchers at Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Center for Software, hosted at the University of Limerick (UL), Ireland.
dr. Mark Campbell and Dr Adam Toth of the Lero Esports Science Research Lab used groundbreaking eye-tracking technology and found that there is no male advantage in mental rotational skills associated with spatial cognition competencies.
dr. Campbell said the skill of spatial cognition, or our ability to navigate our environment, has been the battleground for nearly 40 years for researchers who argue that men have a clear performance advantage in tests of spatial cognition, particularly the test of mental rotations.
Studying the cognitive abilities of individuals and gamers is a primary goal of the Lero Esports Science Research Lab which 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 Science Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects in schools and colleges,” said Dr. Campbell.
dr. Toth summarizes the results:“So men are better than women? Well no, actually. Our study found that there is no male advantage in mental rotational skills. By increasing the time allowed, the male performance advantage diminished completely, suggesting that the so-called sex difference in mental rotation simply isn't there or can be explained by other factors.”
The study also found for the first time that both men and women often used different gaze strategies during the cognitive tests to arrive at the correct answer. In other words, men and women approach the task differently to get the same result.
One hundred University of Limerick (UL) undergraduate and graduate students from psychology and sports sciences have signed up to participate in the Lero researchers' test. The 47 men and 53 women were in good health and had an average age of 23.
