Sex-Related Differences in Response to Practice on a Visual-Spatial Test and Generalization to a Related Test

Abstract

First grade children (93, mean age 6.5 yr) were given a pretest and posttest on 50% of the items from the Children''s Embedded Figures Test. Half of the children were randomly assigned to a training condition and received a brief training procedure on visual-spatial disembedding prior to the administration of the posttest. Children in the control condition received no training. The performance of girls improved significantly more than pretest to posttest than the performance of boys. Boys and girls showed similar beneficial effects of training in addition to the benefit of direct practice. The tendency that was observed for boys to perform higher than girls on the pretest, P < 0.10, was not evident on the posttest. Scores on the pretest predicted scores on a different measure of visual-spatial ability only for children in the control group. Current theories of sex differences in visual-spatial perception were discussed.