Drawing from Memory
Last month, we looked at Feng et al's (2007) research that suggested that player first-person shooter video games could improve performance in a mental rotation task - especially in women. Ferguson et al (2007), also published last month, found that men's and women's abilities to draw "masculine" and "feminine" object exemplars seemed to vary depending on how much they played "violent" video games. That is, the ability of women to draw a "revolver" or a "video game controller" varied in relationship to how many hours, since middle school, they had played violent video games. Out of concern that the "video game controller" exemplar would favor gamers, the results from this exemplar were excluded from the final analysis. Video game players still outperformed non-players on the "revolver" and gender-neutral exemplars, as well as on the Rey-Osterreith Complex Figure (ROCF). There were no gender differences on the ROCF performance.
Wait: I'm going to make a broad, sweeping, and completely unfair generalization again. Ready? Here it comes. I have to question the ability to categorize video games made by someone who puts an AOL address as the contact on their article. AOL? Seriously? I know he's got an university address - I checked on the Texas A&M site, where sociology, psychology, social work, and criminal justice seem to be one big happy academic department. Okay, that was probably several sweeping statements. It got away from me.
But damn. If you're going to use "how good are you at picturing a video game controller?" as your measure of masculine brain function, then I don't even know where to start. I am impressed with the fact that video game playing predicted ability to draw the ROCF after only a minute looking at it. However, I think the point of my greatest concern is the way that the "masculine" and "feminine" exemplar drawings were scored:Standardized rubrics for scoring the exemplars based upon the presence or absence of six separate components of each exemplar. For example the rubric for the exemplar “bicycle” included “chain that leads to rear wheel,” “identifiable seat”, “frame between seat and rear wheel forms an ‘A’ shape,” “brakes located on handlebars or petals,” “wheels have spokes” and a rating of overall quality for a total possible score of “6.” Score ranges on all exemplars were from zero to six.
Individual detail counting makes sense to me on a bicycle (rated gender-neutral) or a revolver (rated masculine), but I'm not sure how appropriate that is to a "brassiere" or "makeup compact", the items presented as feminine exemplars.
EDIT: Ferguson's response in comments
Wait: I'm going to make a broad, sweeping, and completely unfair generalization again. Ready? Here it comes. I have to question the ability to categorize video games made by someone who puts an AOL address as the contact on their article. AOL? Seriously? I know he's got an university address - I checked on the Texas A&M site, where sociology, psychology, social work, and criminal justice seem to be one big happy academic department. Okay, that was probably several sweeping statements. It got away from me.
But damn. If you're going to use "how good are you at picturing a video game controller?" as your measure of masculine brain function, then I don't even know where to start. I am impressed with the fact that video game playing predicted ability to draw the ROCF after only a minute looking at it. However, I think the point of my greatest concern is the way that the "masculine" and "feminine" exemplar drawings were scored:Standardized rubrics for scoring the exemplars based upon the presence or absence of six separate components of each exemplar. For example the rubric for the exemplar “bicycle” included “chain that leads to rear wheel,” “identifiable seat”, “frame between seat and rear wheel forms an ‘A’ shape,” “brakes located on handlebars or petals,” “wheels have spokes” and a rating of overall quality for a total possible score of “6.” Score ranges on all exemplars were from zero to six.
Individual detail counting makes sense to me on a bicycle (rated gender-neutral) or a revolver (rated masculine), but I'm not sure how appropriate that is to a "brassiere" or "makeup compact", the items presented as feminine exemplars.
EDIT: Ferguson's response in comments