Drawing from Memory

[differenceblog]

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

Comments

[poeticalpanther]

That's because "math is hard"; we all know women can't handle complex mathematical concepts, like numbers of parts amounting to more than (gasp) three!

[differenceblog]

But can they read scratch tickets?

[poeticalpanther]

LOL...that one seems like an equal-opportunity bit of stupid. :)

[differenceblog]

btw, I mentioned that one to dabunny last night, and he was ashamed for all of us. Thanks for pointing it out.

Ferguson responds

[anonymous]

Hello

Response to Ferguson

[differenceblog]

Dear Dr. Ferguson

1st and 3rd Person games

[anonymous]

I'm used to taking grief over AOL (but it's free now

Meta-analysis

[differenceblog]

Wow, that's some heady stuff. For others interested, Ferguson's 2007 meta-analysis is available online to people with access to Psychiatric Quarterly -- or you can just ask me, since he was nice enough to pass along a copy.

I'm going to need to sit down with a stats textbook to get a handle on this, but the section on correcting for "publication bias" is fascinating. I hadn't even thought that was possible, and I want to take a closer look at how that's done.

[harfang]

While I am socially fairly androgynous, I feel completely female, and I have always had exemplary spatial skills -- better than most men. I've wondered if this has added to the sociological androgyny...