Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Image manipulation has been reported in mental rotation (Noda, 2010). The purpose of this study is to examine thedevelopment of hand manipulation and gender differences in the placement tasks. Participants included 26 five-year-olds(15 boys, 11 girls), 29 four-year-olds (15 boys, 14 girls), and 29 three-year-olds (14 boys, 15 girls). The task was similarto the WISC picture arrangement. As a procedure, 0 and 180 cards were placed on both sides. Participants were asked theimage of inclining in the intermediate states. Then, 45, 90, and 135 cards were placed. The convex and the bird-like picturewere used. The results showed that girls performed better than boys. And the method of manipulation has changed withage. Boys manipulated cards more frequently than girls. As performance increased, manipulation frequency decreasedin boys while it increased in girls. This may be due to developmental changes in cognitive processing between boys andgirls.