Absence of a gender difference in a haptic version of the water-level task

Berthiaume, François; Robert, Michèle; St-Onge, Richard; Pelletier, Julie

doi:10.3758/bf03334140

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 13 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…There are large individual differences in performance, and one occasionally finds a male advantage in the task (eg . However, gender differences are not invariably obtained in the water-level task (see Voyer et al 1995), and a male advantage is not found in haptic conditions (Berthiaume et al 1993;Heller et al 1999a;. Heller et al (1999aHeller et al ( , 1999b reported minimal gender differences in a haptic task that is very similar to the methodology used in the current study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 73%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Haptic Perception of the Horizontal by Blind and Low-Vision Individuals

et al. 2001

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. We examined haptic perception of the horizontal in visually impaired people. Blind people (late blind and congenitally blind), persons with very low vision, and blindfolded sighted individuals felt raised-line drawings of jars at four angles. They had to demonstrate their understanding that water remains horizontal, despite jar tilt, by selecting the correct raised-line drawing given four choices. Low-vision subjects, with near perfect scores, performed significantly better than the other groups of subjects. While the late-blind and blindfolded sighted subjects performed slightly better than the congenitally blind participants, the difference between the late-blind and congenitally blind groups was nonsignificant. The performance of the congenitally blind subjects indicates that visual experience is not necessary for the development of an understanding that water level stays horizontal, given container tilt.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 73%

“…Robert and her colleagues (Berthiaume et al 1993;Robert and Harel 1996;Robert and Ohlman 1994) reported a great deal of variability when examining the possibility of gender differences in the water-level problem. There are large individual differences in performance, and one occasionally finds a male advantage in the task (eg .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Haptic Perception of the Horizontal by Blind and Low-Vision Individuals

et al. 2001

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…When spatial abilities are tested with nonvisual tasks, converging evidence indicates a lack of sex differences. Studies have shown that, using haptic instead of visual stimuli, the typical male superiority in the Water--Level test ( Berthiaume, Robert, St--Onge, & Pelletier, 1993) and in tests of field independence ( Walker, 1972) is eliminated. Similarly, women's greater overestimation of hill slants is eliminated under haptic conditions ( Proffitt et al, 1995).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The world is not flat: Can people reorient using slope?

Nardi¹,

Newcombe²,

Shipley³

2011

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Studies of spatial representation generally focus on flat environments and visual input. However, the world is not flat, and slopes are part of most natural environments. In a series of 4 experiments, we examined whether humans can use a slope as a source of allocentric, directional information for reorientation. A target was hidden in a corner of a square, featureless enclosure tilted at a 5° angle. Finding it required using the vestibular, kinesthetic, and visual cues associated with the slope gradient. In Experiment 1, the overall sample performed above chance, showing that slope is sufficient for reorientation in a real environment. However, a sex difference emerged; men outperformed women by 1.4 SDs because they were more likely to use a slope-based strategy. In Experiment 2, attention was drawn to the slope, and participants were prompted to rely on it to solve the task; however, men still outperformed women, indicating a greater ability to use slope. In Experiment 3, we excluded the possibility that women's disadvantage was due to wearing heeled footwear. In Experiment 4, women required more time than men to identify the uphill direction of the slope gradient; this suggests that, in a bottom-up fashion, a perceptual or attentional difficulty underlies women's disadvantage in the ability to use slope and their decreased reliance on this cue. Overall, a bi-coordinate representation was used to find the goal: The target was encoded primarily with respect to the vertical axis and secondarily with respect to the orthogonal axis of the slope.

show abstract

“…For most of these differences, there is an advantage in favor of males. However, there is evidence in support of a lack of sex differences in non--visual tasks [2], [17], [18], [19]. One interpretation of these data would suggest that men might have an advantage with visuo--spatial tasks, rather than with spatial tasks per se.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%