By - - PHYSORG.COM
Added: Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:15:09 UTC

Throughout much of human history, it has been assumed by both men and women that men are somehow better able to solve so-described spatial problems than are women. This apparent discrepancy has been used to explain the differences in the numbers of men versus women receiving doctoral degrees in the math and sciences, at least in the United States. Now however, new research by Moshe Hoffman, a researcher from the University of California and colleagues suggests that conventional thinking might be wrong. He and his team have published a paper on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that suggests that spatial ability comes more as a result of the environment in which a person is raised, rather than from gender.

Spatial problems are those that exist in the three dimensional physical world, rather than as themes or ideas. Figuring out how to fit randomly shaped objects into a single whole, for example, as is needed in building a stone fence perhaps, shows an ability to imagine how things will fit together as the project moves along, rather than using trial and error, demonstrates spatial reasoning. Spatial abilities are often believed to be a requisite for doing well in math and other sciences, particularly engineering and physics. Thus the debate about inherent gender abilities takes on more meaning in the academic world.

In their study, Hoffman and his team went to India where they found two very similar cultures living very nearly side by side - with one major difference. One was patrilineal (mostly run by males), the other matrilineal (mostly run by females). To test their theory that culture has more to do with spatial ability than gender, they paid 1,279 adult volunteers of both genders from both groups to assemble a wooden puzzle as quickly as they could; a task they believe that requires spatial abilities. They found that men from the patrilineal group performed the task on average 36% faster than women from the same group. With the matrilineal group however, no discernable time difference between the genders was found, indicating, according to the group, that differences in culture lead to differences in ability to solve a spatial problem rather than gender.
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TAGGED: BIOLOGY, PSYCHOLOGY