Age and sex performance differences as measured by a new nonverbal visual perceptual test

Abstract

Six hundred and twenty-three Ss in Grades 1-6 and 11 were tested with a new nonverbal group-administered visual perceptual test, Wolf's Embedded Figures Test. The resuIts indicated school and age differences at the .0001 level, which were virtually unmodified with the effects of IQ removed. Significant sex differences were found on the individually and group-administered versions and were accounted for by common variance with the spatial test, which has been shown to have high hereditary variance. All figures were unique; therefore, practice, as predicted from short- and long-term memory theory, did not reduce the sex differences. The embedded figures test loaded lowest on the factor with high loading on two fluency tests that are associated with creativity or divergent thinking, casting doubt on Witkin's theory. One of the current emphases in education is the adjustment of curriculum to the individual characteristics and abilities of the learner. A new test was developed to measure one of these individual abilities, visual perception. Research was focused on the components that modify the results of different forrns of the test. This test refinement was based on a review of the literature and was guided by current theory. The resuIts of three separate trials of the test are summarized. The reader is referred to Wolf (1969) for a detailed account of this research. BACKGROUND One means of studying differences in visual perception is to put a small picture in a larger more complex picture and have the S try to find it. Witkin (1950) developed such a test by selecting so me figures of Gottschalk's whieh correlated with tests (the rod-and-frame test, the tilting-room test, and the