Anyone want to explain this study to me?

[ismnotwasm]

Gender Gap In Spatial Skills Starts In Infancy, Psychologists Report

ScienceDaily (Dec. 23, 2008) — Men tend to perform better than women at tasks that require rotating an object mentally, studies have indicated. Now, developmental psychologists at Pitzer College and UCLA have discovered that this type of spatial skill is present in infancy and can be found in boys as young as 5 months old.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081209100948.htm

I mean I understand the study I guess, but isn't it contaminated by this observation?

The 5-month-old boys looked at the mirror image about 1.5 seconds longer than they looked at the more familiar image, a "statistically robust difference" (although girls looked at both images longer than boys did), Moore and Johnson report. The 5-month-old girls looked at the mirror image for slightly less time than they looked at the familiar image.

The observation in parenthesis, that is.

[blueraven95]

1. it seems to me, from the article that I read, that...

there are some major jumps in assumptions about why babies looked at the objects. Possibly the study explained those leaps, but this article sure didn't.

[iverglas]

2. in general

this is a long-standing observation.

There are statistically significant differences in averages between men and women. Then there are me and my brother. We both work in the same field, one that calls for extremely strong language skills, after coming from different directions and earlier careers - me as a lawyer, him as an arts academic.

I can do math. He can't. Actually, he can when he has to -- his GMAT or whatever it is that grad schools in the US require (even for a PhD in a fine art field) was quite high. He just agrees with Barbie that math is hard, and also boring.

Some years ago, a magazine published one of those spatial perception quizzies, involving mirror images and also the 3-D objects opened out to 2-D, that you had to match with the right 3-D image. I ran through the test in a couple of minutes, got them all right. I handed it to him. He stared at the page for a couple of minutes and threw the thing back at me and demanded to know what he was supposed to do with that.

The averages don't mean that all women are 5% less skilled, or whatever, in spatial perception. I don't actually know what they might be productively used for. But a statistically significant difference in something is interesting to a scientist.

Anyhow, I recently read something that connected spatial perception skills with exposure to testosterone in utero. Google "spatial perception" testosterone and there is interesting stuff.

I hope this link works ...

http://books.google.ca/books?id=EPq9sGAv92wC&pg=PA114&lpg=PA114&dq=%22spatial+perception%22+testosterone&source=bl&ots=-ZQbK8Pz9S&sig=-Jb-4S5heamg_iVv6zDStxJyGiU&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

-- a related section of a book called "Social Structure and Testosterone". !



Sorry, I haven't addressed your actual question. I think I don't quite grasp what you're saying - could you elaborate maybe?

[ismnotwasm]

3. The observation that girls looked at both images longer

Than boys. Without reading the actual study, I was kind of curious what that meant, if anything. I like sciencedaily, but the studies cited on the website are commonly either in the no-shit category, or in the what exactly is this supposed to mean category, often, but not exclusively, in gender studies.

I suck at orgainized spatial puzzles, although I'm a decent artist, and had to teach myself to "like" math.

Oh, edit, the link works fine, thanks!

[iverglas]

4. hmm

Boys had shorter attention spans? ;)

I agree, one would have to read the study itself. The article isn't the clearest.

My strong point in art is the spatial arrangement / composition, of course. And I draw to perfection. But I'm afraid of the paint. ;)

[seabeyond]

20. i have also noticed with remote, hubby flips thru and fast.

much faster than i am comfortable with. i tell him, you dont have time to even see anything. also when on computer he spins it faster.

i have found as oldest is getting older he does exactly same with remote for tv and computer. my youngest, not into remote and tv yet does it with computer. drives me mad, but interesting

[tigereye]

5. hmm, this part is interesting

The 5-month-old boys looked at the mirror image about 1.5 seconds longer than they looked at the more familiar image, a "statistically robust difference" (although girls looked at both images longer than boys did), Moore and Johnson report. The 5-month-old girls looked at the mirror image for slightly less time than they looked at the familiar image.
The boys looked longer at the mirror image, the researchers said, because they recognized that the mirror image was completely new and that the other object was simply the original L-shaped image they had become bored with, shown from a different vantage point — a task that required them to rotate the remembered original object mentally.


I think that they might be positing that the fact that the boys looked at the mirror image longer than the girl infants might indicate that they were able to recognize that the image had been rotated/was different, as opposed to the females. I believe that there is a specific part of the brain that tends to be able to rotate images or recognize these images and wonder if this might mean that this particular brain area is more effective in performing those types of perceptual tasks.

You could argue that there is no way of being sure that the male babies recognized/identified that type of perceptual aspect of a picture more rapidly than female babies, but then I'm not a infant developmental/perceptual researcher... it's a very interesting study, nonetheless.


When I was learning how to give IQ tests, I had to give a number of practice tests, and my husband was amazingly good at rapidly reproducing patterns with blocks, much better than I was. One time I was doing a practice test and laid out the blocks upside down...

[ThomCat]

7. They're saying

that there are 2 images, A and B.

Boys looked at image B longer than image A.
Girls looked at image A longer than image B.
Girls looked at both images longer than the boys did.

B is the reverse image of A.

:shrug:

What significance this has, I have no idea. As Iverglas mentioned above, a 5% aver difference is so small that it absolutely does not mean that most boys are better than most girls at this task. It's only significant to statisticians.

[tigereye]

8. well, the researchers thought it was significant- it would have been more

helpful to read the whole study article to learn more.


My understanding is that the male infants likely processed the images in a different way (probably due to some neurological differences) than the female infants and were able to intuit that the image was rotated, but they don't really tell us how the longer period of viewing indicates this. Maybe I'll see if I can find the study itself to look at.

[lukasahero]

9. Just to complement your anecdote,

I am far more spatially oriented than my husband...

Anecdotes (and this study) are meaningless.

[tigereye]

10. I don't know that the study is meaningless (it's my field so I tend to be in-

trigued by developmental and neurological studies), but some of em seem to reach conclusions that don't seem warranted by the study itself. I really should look at the study itself to see what they were really driving at.


Infant studies are often very interesting.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

12. well, here's the kicker for me:

The boys looked longer at the mirror image, the researchers said, because they recognized that the mirror image was completely new and that the other object was simply the original L-shaped image they had become bored with, shown from a different vantage point — a task that required them to rotate the remembered original object mentally.

bold and italics added by me--those are strictly the writer's interpretations, IMO. They reveal the writer's prejudice, overlaying their imagination of thought processes onto the infants' behaviors.

If I may translate the hidden innuendo I'm seeing:

"They" the males, recognized simplistic and unchallenging repetition, and sought more demanding stimulation. This implies the opposite interpretation for the girls, in other words, the girls did not recognize simplistic, boring repetition and were content with the unchallenging.

[bliss_eternal]

6. I think science daily...

...is full of shit. Haven't we posted links from them in the past? Other bs articles that are overtly sexist and racist?

[ismnotwasm]

11. Well their gender studies certainly are interesting

Most of their studies are short summaries, so it's really hard to pull real info out of them. So it's a matter of who is picking what for the website. Leans toward a little to the evo-psych if you know what I mean.

That being said this one, which has a bit more info and is clearer (naturally)just makes me sad;

Gender Bias Found In Student Ratings Of High School Science Teachers
ScienceDaily (Feb. 8, 2009) — A study of 18,000 biology, chemistry and physics students has uncovered notable gender bias in student ratings of high school science teachers.

Researchers at Clemson University, the University of Virginia and Harvard University have found that, on average, female high school science teachers received lower evaluations than their male counterparts even though male and female teachers are equally effective at preparing their students for college
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090202174953.htm

Lets guess; Female science professors aren't what? Sexy enough? Have shrill voices? Oh, wait, I bet it's they're----what's that word? Oh yeah. Bitchy. I bet it is. Physics, for instance, is generally pretty tough and to get there you've already had some tough math. It would be interesting to see how those conclusions were reached.

[bluedawg12]

13. The Science Daily Artilce is simply an editorial opinion of the research paper

with the authors POV on what the research paper and really tells us nothing about the quality of the research other than enumrating the credentials of the authors.

In the mean time the little they describe as research methodoloy is very subjective:

>>The 5-month-old boys looked at the mirror image about 1.5 seconds longer than they looked at the more familiar image, a "statistically robust difference" (although girls looked at both images longer than boys did), Moore and Johnson report. The 5-month-old girls looked at the mirror image for slightly less time than they looked at the familiar image.

The boys looked longer at the mirror image, the researchers said, because they recognized that the mirror image was completely new and that the other object was simply the original L-shaped image they had become bored with, shown from a different vantage point — a task that required them to rotate the remembered original object mentally.<<
-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/0902021749...


I wonder if the researchers were blinded to the sex of the infant and we simply asked them to compare data from infants B (for boys) and infants A (for girls), would they have a clue why the infants in group B stared at the mirror image blocks longer because they didn't know what it was, rather than, seeing it as something new and group A figured out "Oh, it's the letter L in mirror image, this is boring, I wonder wat the chemical compostion of those blocks are and why they reflect light from that particular range of the spectru, but, gee I am only a five month old baby girl and I'm hungry, where's the food?"

In short, the interpretation of staring by the observers seems awfully subjective and I don't know what the term, "statistically robust difference," means, :eyes: it's either significant or not and to what degree of probability. Also, if the researchers actually knew the sex of the little infants when they were given the data about the length of time glancing at an object on a screen, then, they were also a variable themselves and brought their prior data bias with them.

[bliss_eternal]

14. How clever.

...posting a few remarks in other threads so your obvious and rather sudden appearance in feminism looks like you have a genuine
interest in the subject matter.

FYI--anyone that can read, can see when and where your first post in this forum was (and where you made the most remarks and why). But it's super cute you tried this. :hi:

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bluedawg12]

18. Did you find what I wrote interesting?

Because you only get to discuss the topic and not your version of my motives, Bliss.
The article I commented on has some good information.

And thank you for the warm welcome. :)

It was nice strolling around and looking at other threads while I was here. There was another interesting thread about high blood pressure.

About the infant babies and their spatial percpetion at 5 months, I did question their conlcusions and methodology. I'll try to stop back there when I get a chance.

Monday's are so hard, much work and little time to relax on various forums.

[bliss_eternal]

21. Not particularly.

As for that welcome....

Feminists forum mission statement:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=341x1

The following passages should be particularly interesting for you:

- This is not a group to discuss gender, class or sexual orientation rights and issues. It is specifically to discuss women's rights and issues as they affect women from a woman's perspective and experience.

- Attempts to minimize or dismiss women and/or the issues being discussed are not welcome.

- Like-minded DUers of all genders are encouraged to participate.

[Vanje]

16. Women and stroke: Good news for caffeinated women

Could a woman's consuming coffee actually reduce her risk of a stroke? According to the latest research as reported in the February 16, 2009 issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, it may just be true!

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1490630/coffee_consumption_may_reduce_stroke.html

[Vanje]

22. Sorry! That was meant for the thread about strokes

Apologies.

[Control-Z]

17. It just took the baby boys

longer to recognize that the image was rotated. Girls pick on those kind of things so much more quickly!

Okay, I'm joking, but it makes just as much sense.

[bluedawg12]

19. That makes sense to me.

Their interpretation would be biased if they knew the sex of the baby as they made their analysis. It should be a double blind study.