Abstract
Introduction: This involves a review of how the brain processes images based on the position of the body. The right cerebral hemisphere has a centre for this function, and there are various processes in such analysis by the brain. The results reflect certain features of an individual.
Hypothesis: There will be a difference between males and females reaction time when mentally rotating an image.
Methods: Males and female persons of various ages who agreed to participate in the study went through the tasks. Their signed consent only became viable if the institution granted as permission to carry out the study. This grant was in hand at this time. The participants went through the Overman Mental Rotation Task with limited body movement.
Results: The data collected was of the time it took the participant to have a correct response. The difference in the result for the male and female participants got compared. The variations of the data from either group of the study showed the strength of the data. Independent variables are gender and age while the independent variables are the number of correct responses and the reaction time.
Discussion: The inference from the results shows the difference in the number of correct responses based on the gender of the participants at different ages shows that there is a spatial difference in based in gender.
Conclusion: The background information and the various processes of the study get reviewed in this section.
Introduction
The various differences of the sexes have intrigued researchers for ages. The cognitive functions of males and females do not have equal standards based on previous researches. To determine the mental abilities of males and females, the various functions of the brain get broken down. These include mental rotation, spatial perception and spatial visualizations. Tests of mental rotation have a consistent result of difference based on the gender of the participant. Mental rotation tasks involve the repositioning of a 2- or 3-dimensional object in the mind of the participant. The imagination of the person undergoing the test must spin to analyze the object that is rotating to various angles and then match it with one of various choices. A correct analysis and the time it takes to reach it are the key determinants of the ability of one’s brain to adapt to mental rotation.
These differences in the mental rotation between males and females engendered researchers to find out the reasons behind these findings. Some theories suggest the spatial abilities of male and females vary due to the difference in life experiences in between the male and female fraternities. Newcombe and her colleagues put up this theory to suggest that males participate more in activities that require the exercising of spatial abilities than females. They listed activities in the adolescent age period and listed those that were masculine, female and neutral. Masculine activities appeared to require more use of the spatial abilities of an individual than the other two groups of activities in the adolescent age. In addition, males participate in masculine activities more than their female counterparts do in the late adolescence stages. This makes the males have advanced mental rotation. As for younger persons, there might be discrepancies in the consistency of the data as young girls tend to participate in masculine activities as femininity has not set in to their mentality (Richardson, 1994).
Newcombe also had a breakthrough in explaining this theory by finding a positive correlation between participation in spatial activity and the spatial ability of a subject. The use of questionnaires by her faction found a weak but reliable relationship between these two variables.
Another theory that explains the difference in the spatial ability of mental rotation bases its argument on the hormonal influxes at critical times of mental development. regions of the brain that are responsible for the spatial abilities of an individual are prone to repression by hormones released during critical developmental periods. These hormones also affect brain lateralization reducing the advancement of the centers for spatial abilities. Waber (1989) formulated this theory explaining that females that mature late in life have better spatial abilities than women who matured early in life. The early ages of an individual bear the critical developmental periods, and thus brain development and lateralization occurs without the deleterious effect of hormones in the case of a late-maturing woman. This enables the advancement of spatial ability centers in the brain making them have better mental rotation than those that developed earlier in life that had hormone influxes interfering with the brain development.
The hormonal theory has other numerous explanations as to how it can affect the mental rotation of an individual creating a difference in the spatial abilities between males and females. Resnick, Berenbaum, Gottesman and Bouchard (1986) based their argument on Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia and its effects on spatial abilities. The activation of hormone releases relative to the critical periods of development have a significant effect on the mental rotation of an individual.
The right parietal lobe is significantly responsible for the spatial tasks in the brain. Non-invasive instruments like the electroencephalogram localized this functional area. This instrument determines the alpha-suppression that occurs through functional magnetic resonance imaging. During a mental rotation task, the activity in this region of the brain increases with an increasing angle of rotation. This further affirms that this region is the spatial task region of the brain. Damage to this area lead to long reaction times and an increase instances of wrong analysis in mental rotation tasks (Roberts & Bell, 2000).
The cerebellum’s vestibular functions of the brain are limited during mental rotation tasks due the stagnation of the head, and thus proprioceptive functions are only stimulating and not responsive. Vestibular eye and neck movements cannot assist in the analysis of the rotating image.
Aim and Hypothesis
The aim of this study is to determine the difference in the reaction time of males and females. The activity of the right parietal lobe of the brain in the cause during and before the mental rotation task gets assessed as well as the time it takes for the participants to respond correctly to the test.
The hypothesis states that there will be a difference in the reaction time in males and females of later ages of adolescents. The reaction time among young participants will not be significantly different due to the lack of hormone activation that causes differences in mental development.
Methods
Participants
After receiving permission from the Psychology Ethics Department, male and female participants signed consents to take part in the study. The participants had to be right-handed to prevent confusions due to differences in lateralization. Furthermore, those with visual problems or under medication that might affect their participation did not form part of the results.
Fifteen 16-year-old participants (7 male, 8 female) and ten 8-year-old participants (5 male, 5 female) formed the team that gave the data for analysis. These participants signed their consent to participate in the study before beginning the mental rotation task and analysis.
Procedure
The participants received questionnaires to fill that required the information on the types of activities they participated in that required their spatial activities to come into play. These included sports activities and computer use. These questions provided information that could explicate on variation in the data during analysis.
The baseline EEG reading to determine the activity of the brain before the beginning of the mental rotation task was carried out to compare it with the EEG readings during the task. The participants look at a blank screen without heavy mental tasking. The right parietal lobe functioning assessment involved placing electrode of the EEG at strategic points in the head. This reading of the alpha suppression showed the brains activity in the right parietal lobe.
The participants then carried out the mental rotation task. The Overman Mental Rotation Task provided an image of a stick man carrying a walking stick in one of his hands. The figure had four possible positions; the man facing forward with the walking stick in either his right or left hand and the man facing backwards with his walking stick in either his left or right hand. The participants had to select a choice of left or right as regards the hand on which the walking stick was in with the image rotated to six different angles. The variation of the angles of the image were a front-facing man at 00, a front-facing man at 900 to the left, a back-facing at 1200 to the right, a front-facing man at 1200 to the left, a back-facing man 900 to the right and a front-facing man at 450 to the right. They participants put a tick on their choice after analyzing the picture on a measured period.
The participants carried two pre-trial mental rotation tests before the actual testing phase begun. The difference in EEG readings taken during the carrying out of the task and the baseline EEG reading showed the mental activity during the task. Subtraction of the baseline EEG reading the EEG reading during a mental rotation task showed the activity of the functional area during the task for the different genders.
Results
The Reaction Time
The reaction times for the participants for each angle based themselves on the 00 front facing-facing man image. The time it takes one to tick an answer gets subtracted from the time it took to respond to this image. The analysis revealed that the 16-year old males had quicker response times for each of the various angles of the images. ANOVA calculations on the results of the men cemented this fact. In the case of 8-year old participants, reaction times for both males and females were within in close proximity.
Correct Responses
The correct responses among the participants aged 16 were more than those for the 8-year old participants. The angle of rotation also determined the number of correct responses that the participants with most participants scoring the front-facing man rotated 900 to the left correctly.
Discussion
The results affirm the hypothesis that indeed there is a difference in the reaction time of males and females in a mental rotation task. Males and females of higher ages illustrate this difference more than younger males and females who show equal spatial abilities. This is due to the influence of hormones on the development of the functional area for spatial abilities that include mental rotation. The EEG readings showed the alpha-suppression in the male brain during mental rotation was more in males than in females. The angle of rotation of the image also influenced the activity of the brain.
Conclusion
The research was about the reaction time in mental rotation task in males and females. In the research to determine the differences between the two genders, cognitive functions and spatial abilities have showed a consistency in variation. The spatial abilities of the brain are a function of the right parietal lobe (in right-handed persons). The difference in activities of males and females at different ages cause a difference in the spatial abilities some require the use of these skills than others. The hormonal release activation in the bodies of males and females also determine the development of the functional area and lateralization of the brain. This creates an interruption in the development of the region for spatial functions.
The participants were of eight and sixteen years old of both genders. The sixteen-year old participants had their mental development affected by hormonal activation unlike the eight year olds. This made the reaction time for the mental rotation task of the 8-year old male and females almost equal. The 16-year old participants had the males having less reaction time than their female counterparts had. Therefore, there is a difference in the reaction time between males and females in a mental rotation task.
References
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Waber, D. P. (1977). Sex differences in mental abilities, hemispheric lateralization, and rate of
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