Abstract
Some have explained large sex differences in visuospatial abilities by genetic adaptations to different roles in primitive hunter-gatherer societies and the interaction of innate biological differences and environmental factors. We explored the extent to which variations in behavior and acquired skills can provide alternative accounts for sex differences in the performance of a complex spatially-demanding video game (Space Fortress). Men and women with limited video game experience were given 30 hours of training, and latent curve analyses examined the development of their ship control performance and behavior. Men had significantly better control performance than women before and after training, but differences diminished substantially over the training period. An analysis of participants’ joystick behaviors revealed that initially men and women relied on different patterns of control behaviors, but changes in these behaviors over time accounted for the reduced sex differences in performance. When we controlled for these differences in behavior, sex effects after training were no longer significant. Finally, examining the development of control performance and control behaviors of men and women categorized as initially high and low performers revealed the lower-performing women may have been controlling their ship using an approach that was very different from the men and higher-performing women. The potential problems of analyzing men and women’s spatial performance as homogenous groups are discussed, as well as how these issues may account for sex differences in skilled video game performance and perhaps other domains involving spatial abilities.
Highlights
Sex differences in spatial abilities: Anthropological and biological perspectivesThe origin of sex differences in spatial ability has been a topic of much academic interest over the years, and a number of studies have reported men demonstrating superior performance compared to women on spatial tasks like mental rotation [1,2]
Recent investigations have found that women who were exposed to higher than normal levels of prenatal androgens displayed better spatial ability performance compared to women who were not, suggesting a link between the development of spatial abilities and the presence of male sex hormones [7,8]
Studies have found that women were more likely than men to use a less efficient piecewise or analytic strategy rather than a holistic or rotational strategy on mental rotation tasks [20,21,22], and that sex differences in performance can be significantly reduced through training and manipulations of the instructions or task [17,23]
Summary
Sex differences in spatial abilities: Anthropological and biological perspectivesThe origin of sex differences in spatial ability has been a topic of much academic interest over the years, and a number of studies have reported men demonstrating superior performance compared to women on spatial tasks like mental rotation [1,2]. Some researchers have proposed an evolutionary explanation for this advantage, notably the hunter-gatherer hypothesis of spatial sex differences, which suggests superior visuospatial abilities played a crucial role in the tracking and killing of elusive and quick-moving prey and provided a selective advantage in male humans for many thousands of years [5,6]. According to this view there are innate, biological mechanisms developed during evolutionary history that explain why men outperform women on a variety of visuospatial tasks. The interaction with environmental elements becomes especially important when considering sex differences in light of differences in the amount of engagement with activities believed to be associated with spatial skill development
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