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Comment by chroma | Hacker News Reader

Did your colleague know about mental rotation tests?[1] Men perform significantly better than women at these. And among men, mental rotation ability is correlated with testosterone levels.[2] I could see your buddy arguing that culture was responsible for behavioral differences such as violent tendencies, but the same dismissal can't be made of this test.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_rotation

2. http://www.academia.edu/3118000/The_relationship_of_male_tes...

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As esailija posted elsewhere in this thread, at least one study has shown that gender differences in mental rotation tasks can be eliminated through training.

In the "soft" sciences, about 1/3 of all studies get the wrong result.

This means you can always find a study supporting what you want to believe.

>Men perform significantly better

Actually, the reference you cited says "slightly better". It may or may not be significant but let's stay on track here.

In the original mental rotation test, there was no overlap between men and women: https://brothersdiamond.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/menwoman...

The Vandenberg and Kuse paper[1] followed up on this using a test that was easier to administer to large groups. In that study, the average male score was the same as the 85th percentile of female scores.

"Significant" describes this difference much more accurately than "slight."

1. http://wexler.free.fr/library/files/peters%20(1995)%20a%20re...

The male versus female is amazing, but what about that drop in ability from age 29 to 33. I know one of the video game FPS coaches said that after you turn 30, one is out of the game, but look at that drop. There should be studies to figure out what causes that; it is impacting male and female.

The drop is probably multiple factors, including aging. The study was done in 1975. Someone 28 years old would have been born in 1947. A 33 year-old would have been born in 1942 –the darkest days of WWII. Prenatal nutrition was likely an issue then. Ditto for those born earlier, as they had to deal with the great depression.

Also, the sample size in the first study was rather small, as they were just trying to answer the question, "Does the time it takes to mentally rotate an object depend on the angle of rotation?" (Answer: yes.)

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