Male advantage on spatial tasks may be explained in part by gender stereotypes (Nash 1975). The current studyinvestigated the effect of awareness of sex differences in mental rotation on mental rotation (MR) performance. We hypothe-sized that students with negative stereotypes would score significantly lower than students who were unaware or held positivestereotypes. Participants – 285 undergraduates — completed the Shepard & Metzler (1971) MR task followed by a short onlinesurvey. Preliminary analysis revealed a significant sex difference in mental rotation performance F (1, 256) = 9.68, p=. 002.There was no main effect of awareness on MR performance. Interestingly, there was a significant interaction between sex andawareness on MR performance, F (1,256) =6.77, p=. 010. Results on the role of awareness in cognitive strategy selectionwill be presented. By understanding gender stereotypes associated with spatial ability, we can reduce the gender gap found inSTEM disciplines.

This study investigated sketch maps and written summaries as measures of large-scale spatial representations as wellas learning aids to improve navigation proficiency. One hundred and fifty-six participants explored a virtual environment(VE) comprising independent and connecting routes. Participants were then asked to sketch or write a summary describingthe layout of the VE. A free exploration phase followed in which they could learn more. The testing phase comprised twoobjective measures of navigation proficiency: a pointing task and a model-building task. Sketches provided significantlymore target and route details about the VE than written summaries, although the quality of both correlated with objectivenavigation measures. Thus, both are good measures of spatial representations, despite prior doubts about them. However,neither sketching nor written summaries positively influenced subsequent exploration or spatial learning. Symbolic rep-resentations may not be effective tools for improving navigation skills. Another possibility is that they may be but onlywith further represent-explore-feedback cycles.

Research on spatial thinking needs reliable and valid measures of individual differences in skills. Visuospatial Perspective Taking (PT)—the ability to mentally maintain and transform spatial relationships between objects within an environment—is one kind of spatial skill that is especially relevant to navigation and building cognitive maps. However, the psychometric properties of various PT tasks have yet to be examined. The present study examines three main psychometric properties of PT tasks: 1) the reliability of two tasks developed for children but adapted in difficulty level for use in adult populations, 2) item difficulty and discriminability within and between four tasks using item response theory, and 3) relation of scores with general intelligence, working memory, and mental rotation. Results showed that two of the four PT tasks have promising psychometric properties for measuring a wide range of PT ability based on item difficulty, discriminability, and efficiency of a test information function.

Popular sources often assume the existence of a male advantage in navigation, but the scientific data are inconsistent. This meta-analysis evaluates the literature on behavioral sex differences in human navigation. We quantify the overall magnitude of sex differences in a variety of paradigms and populations and examine potential moderators in large-scale navigation skills, using 694 effect sizes from 266 studies and a multilevel linear modeling approach. Overall, we found that male participants outperform female participants, with a small to medium effect size (d= 0.34 to 0.38). The type of task, the type of dependent variable and the testing environment significantly contribute to variability in effect sizes. Pointing and recall tasks show larger sex differences than distance estimation tasks or learning to criterion; among the dependent variables, the deviation scores associated with pointing tasks show larger effect sizes. The largest estimate was d = .55 for tasks than required coordinating indoor and outdoor views. Interestingly, studies with children younger than 13 years showed very small effect sizes (d = .15) as compared to older age groups. We discuss the implications of these findings for the study of sex differences and identify avenues for future navigation research.

Research on the reciprocal influence of spatial thinking and GIScience training is limited (Wakabayashi & Ishikawa,2011). In the current project, we examine improvement in spatial navigation in undergraduates enrolled in GIS classes over thecourse of a semester. Students enrolled in strategic communications (SC), a low-spatial content class, were used as a controlgroup. Fifty students were trained and tested at 2 time points – beginning and end of a semester – in a virtual navigationtask (Silcton; Weisberg, et. al., 2014). We hypothesize that a significantly higher number of GIS students as compared toSC students will be Integrators i.e. they will find the most targets within-route and between-route in the virtual environment.Furthermore, we hypothesize that GIS students will show a significantly greater improvement at time point 2 as compared toSC students. This research has important implications for spatial training and educational pedagogy in STEM disciplines.

STEM disciplines have been shown to positively impact an individual’s visuospatial skills (Kozhevnikov, 1999).The current study examines improvement in spatial thinking in physics undergraduate students over the course of a semester.Students completed the Shepard and Metzler (1971) task at two time points– beginning and end of a semester – where they wereasked to determine if two 3D figures were a match or mirror-images of each other. A Tobii X60 eye-tracker was used to recordeye movement as an indirect measure of cognitive strategy selection. Preliminary analysis show a significant improvement inmental rotation performance from time point 1 (M=31.867, SD=5.027) to time point 2 (M=35.333, SD=3.885) t(14)=-3.014,p=.009. A latent profile analysis will be used to model cognitive strategies selected at time points 1 and 2 and analyzed for sexdifferences. The findings of this study are important for understanding the underrepresentation of women in STEM.