One of the largest known cognitive advantages men haveover women - adeptness at "mental rotation" - vanishes when subjects are exposed to VR technology.
MARKETING GURUS
for multimedia games may have to radically rethink their demographic
strategies: virtual reality technology, it turns out, is hardly just a "guy
thing."
In fact, you can expect women to be donning
VR goggles in droves as a result of a new USC study showing that women have
a lot to gain from the experience.
It seems that one of the largest known cognitive advantages men have over
women - adeptness at "mental rotation" - vanishes when subjects
are exposed to VR technology, according to Albert Rizzo, an electrical engineer
at the School of Engineering's Integrated Media Systems Center and a psychologist
with USC's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.
The ability to orient objects spatially in one's mind is known as mental rotation.
Usually, the skill is measured by a standard pencil-and-paper test. Subjects
look at a group of line drawings, each showing object from different angles
or as mirror images. In five minutes, they must match as many sets as they
can.
"Men consistently score higher than women on the mental rotation test,
and previous research has found an inverse relationship between estrogen levels
and spatial ability," Rizzo says.
BUT WHAT IF you
replace the pencil with a joystick? To find out the answer to that question,
Rizzo tested 60 men and women between the ages of 18 and 34, first with the
standard mental rotation test and then using a VR system.
In the paper test, "as expected the men
scored significantly better than the women," Rizzo says.
But in the VR tests, the gender gap disappeared. Wearing special goggles and
wielding a hand control, women were as successful as men at mentally rotating
3D blocks that appeared to be floating toward them on a large rear-projected
computer screen.
"We did not find any gender differences in the virtual reality tests
of mental rotation," Rizzo says.
What's more, the cognitive improvement seems to be long-lasting. In the final
phase of the study, Rizzo had subjects retake a different version of the pencil-and-paper
test. Those who had done poorly the first time got significantly better scores.
"This suggests that we can use virtual reality to help people with poor
rotational skills to improve them," Rizzo says.
WOMEN MAY NOT BE
the only beneficiaries of these findings. Another group not
noted for its techno-savvy also stands to gain. Rizzo plans to administer
his test next to senior citizens, in research funded by the National Institute
of Aging.
"We are anxious to see how seniors react
to this technology,"Rizzo says. "Most research in this area has
been done with young people."
LEARN MORE ABOUT IT
Why Rotate ?
BEING ABLE TO ROTATE an object mentally may
seem like a rather useless accomplishment, but actually it has many benefits
in everyday life: in driving, in sports, in packing a suitcase or moving a
large sofa through a small door.
It has been linked to high level mathematics performance.
Engineering professor Albert Rizzo believes poor mental rotation skills may
be one reason why women are underrepresented in engineering, design and architecture.
Mental rotation is also an important test used to diagnose
traumatic brain injuries and to distinguish between Alzheimer's and other
dementias. Most Alzheimer's patients have significant loss of spatial orientation,
unlike patients with various other forms of dementia, he says. The researcher
hopes to perform his paper vs VR test on Alzheimer's patients and patients
with other dementias.
"This has potentially profound implications for
understanding brain functioning," Rizzo says.