Hacker News Reader

Comment by izzydata | Hacker News Reader

This might sound crazy, but I wouldn't be surprised if the traditionally male activity of video games could help explain the gap of spatial skills between men and woman.

Navigating and memorizing virtual 3D environments is a skill that seemed very natural to me growing up so it was always a bit strange to watch other people struggle at what seemed like a basic task.

View on HN

Men having an affinity for certain types of video games is a symptom not an effect. The difference between the sexes in this area existed before video games were a thing.

I think there is something to the notion that this has to do with acculturation though. There are plenty of men that suck at sports and have bad spatial awareness, but society provides way more outlets and social reward/pressure to develop those skills to men than it does to women.

I think evolution must have affected it strongly, right? I imagine the men who weren't very good at this were more likely to be killed in battle and therefore not able to reproduce

That's a really strong claim.

Its might be a strong claim in the bay or the PNW, but that different sexes statistically have some different preferences is a pretty tame notion.

The "symptom" claim is one thing, the "not an effect" claim seems absurd. Your statement is not the same as GGP's.

I should have said cause rather than effect. Men are not good at spatial reasoning because they play video games, but rather they play video games because they are good at spacial reasoning. Of course I mean the types of video games for which spacial reasoning improves play.

I'm saying it's probably both a cause and an effect. Do you think that engaging in spacial reasoning tasks doesn't make you better at spacial reasoning? If it does make you better then playing video games is also a cause for spacial reasoning abilities (though not the only cause).

You can look at the ASVAB test used by the military since 1968. One of the categories of the first iteration of the test was space perception. Studies of ASVAB results between men and women have found that men score higher on the composite technical aptitude score even at lower general intelligence than women.

The reality is that men have been observed to have, for whatever reason, higher proficiency at spatial reasoning than women long before video games were a thing. To say that 3d video games played by boys and men has led to boys and men being better at spatial reasoning is fallacious when it's known that this existed before video games were broadly available. It also is logical to see that video games that play into the strong suit of men and boys is going to attract more men and boys.

A pebble rolls down a hill, collecting snow as it goes; what causes the snowball to grow, the pebble or the snow?

That and LEGO, especially the often-looked-down-upon act of building sets from the directions, which are pretty much a series of "spot the difference in a 3D scene" puzzles.

Discussed in the article in terms that the dfferences are independent of culture.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com