Visuospatial Ability and Gender

Excerpts from the Paper

Visuospatial Ability and Gender
According to
Cherney
[Sex Roles (2008) 59:776-786]:
(on pages 776 and 777)
Gender based differences in mathematical skills have a significant link to the level of
visuospatial
ability a specific gender has.
Visuospatial
abilities are those related to understanding and conceptualizing visual representations and spatial relationships in learning and performing a task. Mathematical skills and
visuospatial
ability are said to be correlated due to the fact that
visuospatial
skills factor in to the differences between males and females and their mathematical performance. Beyond mathematics, there are other important academic areas that are impacted by having strong
visuospatial
and mathematical skills, including...

.....ng.
Employers in fields like engineering and science use superior spatial ability as a factor in hiring. Often females score lower than males on spatial skills tests and are underrepresented in these fields, with global participation as low as one in five. Our first experiment, which used UFOV to measure spatial attention, revealed certain cognitive practices are associated with educational and career choices. Also, training with the correctly designed action video games could be an important part of a larger strategy designed to engage women in engineering and science careers. If gains were realized after only 10 hours for non-video game players based on our study, ongoing video game experience would potentially provide tremendous results.