Individual differences in water-level task performance: A component-skills analysis

Abstract

Over the past two decades, several studies have indicated that many adults have difficulty in demonstrating the concept that liquids remain invariantly horizontal and that this is more often true of women than men. Theoretical explanations for these differences have centered around biological and sociocultural hypotheses. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on individual differences in adult performance on Piaget's water-level task and to offer an interpretation based on a component-skills analysis of water-level task performance. Water-level task performance is reduced to the subabilities of (a) visualperceptual skills, (b) mental imagery and rotation skills, (c) utilization of spatial coordinate systems, and (d) recall of relevant information. The utility of a component-skills analysis in understanding water-level task performance is discussed.