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Abstract

Sex-related differences in spatial ability have regularly shown a slight performance advantage among males on standard tests; however, the impact of these differences in real-world tasks that may depend on spatial ability has rarely been investigated. We conducted an experiment to evaluate the relationship between sex-related differences in spatial ability as quantified by two measures (Thurstone’s Mental Rotation test and the Spatial Reasoning Instrument), and performance in a conventional signal detection task. Mixed results showed some support for slightly improved male spatial ability. We then conducted a follow-up experiment to investigate sex-related differences in spatial ability and with respect to performance in a continuous signal detection task. Slight male advantages in performance of the spatial ability measures emerged, and also in the continuous signal detection task, but not for the conventional signal detection task.

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Sex-related Differences in Spatial Ability and Signal Detection Task Performance

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