2007/11/26 by Melissa Terlecki, Nora S. Newcombe, Michelle Little · 8 citations
Engineering · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Child and Animal Learning Development #Geography Education and Pedagogy #Spatial Cognition and Navigation
paper · doi:10.1002/acp.1420
openalex publication_date 2007/11/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/16
Abstract This study addressed questions about improvement in mental rotation skills: (1) whether growth trajectories differ for men and women with higher or lower spatial experience, (2) whether videogame training has effects on performance and leads to transfer, (3) whether effects of repeated testing or training effects are durable and (4) whether transfer is durable. Undergraduates participated in repeated testing on the MRT or played the videogame Tetris. Analyses showed large improvements in mental rotation with both repeated testing and training; these gains were maintained several months later. MRT scores of men and women did not converge, but men showed faster initial growth and women showed more improvement later. Videogame training showed greater initial growth than repeated testing alone, but final performance did not differ. Effects of videogame training transferred to other spatial tasks exceeding the effects of repeated testing, and this transfer advantage was still evident after several months. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.