Absence of a gender difference in a haptic version of the water-level task

The present experiment studied horizontality representation among men and women submitted to a haptic version of the water-level task. Without seeing the display, the subjects positioned a magnetic rod corresponding to the water line. It was found that the women performed as well as the men did, in contrast to the systematic male superiority under the standard visual version. Similarly, there was no gender effect when the subjects were instructed to set the rod horizontally in tilted containers. The absence of misleading visual information and the beneficial contribution of salient proprioceptive cues through haptic activity were suggested as possible determinants for the canceling of typical gender differences.

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