Video Games and Gender Equity

Here's a fascinating result from Jing Feng, Ian Spence, and Jay Pratt on the subject of the well-known male edge on visiuspatial tests. One such test is known as the Field of Vision test. The researchers gave people the test before, after, and several months after "training" for it by playing two different video games. One game, Ballance (a 3-D puzzle game) didn't do much. But the action game Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault did make a big difference, improving scores for men and women but doing so in a way that drastically narrowed the performance gap. They say they got similar results on the Mental Rotation test.

This seems to suggest that a larger portion of the male/female visiospatial gap may be rooted in socialization than is generally thought. Or else that insofar as the gap is rooted in genetics it's through the mechanism of a male preference for violent video games.

Comments

Really small sample size (only 5 males and 5 females tested on each of the 2 types of game?)

I would expect the error bars around those results to be very broad.

Posted by J | July 10, 2008 2:19 PM

(only 5 males and 5 females tested on each of the 2 types of game?)

Whoops, even worse - it was 3 males and 7 females on each game.

A sample size of 3? I'd never consider publishing something like that. This is embarrassing.

Posted by J | July 10, 2008 2:26 PM

I would interpret these findings with great caution. The findings are effectively based on data from three men and seven women (since half of the total sample was allocated to the control condition). Men seemed to retain a significant advantage over women even after testing although the very low statistical power of this study makes that impossible to test properly.

Posted by MC | July 10, 2008 2:32 PM

I would interpret these findings with great caution. The findings are effectively based on data from three men and seven women (since half of the total sample was allocated to the control condition). Men seemed to retain a significant advantage over women even after testing although the very low statistical power of this study makes that impossible to test properly.

Posted by MC | July 10, 2008 2:33 PM

I would interpret these findings with great caution. The findings are effectively based on data from three men and seven women (since half of the total sample was allocated to the control condition). Men seemed to retain a significant advantage over women even after testing although the very low statistical power of this study makes that impossible to test properly.

Posted by MC | July 10, 2008 2:34 PM

I would hit the "Post" button with great caution.

Posted by Just Dropping By | July 10, 2008 2:36 PM

Yeah - sorry about that. Kept giving me an error message and then finally showed the same post three times.

Posted by MC | July 10, 2008 2:50 PM

Note to MC--be sure to open a new browser window and reload the page before clicking "Post" a second time. Odds are your comment went through.

Posted by James Gary | July 10, 2008 3:03 PM

I have never believed in big innate differences in mental rotation abilities or anything. I think a lot of girls aren't interested in skill-games, due to a learned or socialized humility.

Posted by Gary Sugar | July 10, 2008 3:03 PM

Imagine the results if they had played a good game like Call of Duty 4 or Half-Life 2! MoH: Pacific Assault was pretty mediocre, and the out of place flying levels were terrible.

Posted by William | July 10, 2008 3:04 PM

It is just frightening that results based on three undergraduate men may start to influence public policy. Matt (and Andrew Sullivan) should pay a bit more attention to the original article rather than reporting third-hand about stuff like this.

Posted by MC | July 10, 2008 3:13 PM

A sample size of 3? I'd never consider publishing something like that. This is embarrassing.

In fairness, the sample size was much larger before the study participants took horrific casualties attempting the landing at Tarawa.

Posted by JB | July 10, 2008 3:28 PM

This seems to suggest that a larger portion of the male/female visiospatial gap may be rooted in socialization than is generally thought.

"Generally thought" by people who swallowed the bullshit that people who aren't hunters don't need to keep track of where objects in the world are, maybe.

Posted by DonBoy | July 10, 2008 3:58 PM

I believe the liberal approach to gender issues in this regard is absolutely wrong. Well, wrongly directed. At issue is not whether a difference exists, or if that difference is entirely socially based or partly genetic.

At issue is a very simple premise. Are people allowed to do that which they either desire to do, or are good at?

That's it, it's that simple. If a female wants to race at Indy and she's good enough to do it, then what's the problem? But that doesn't mean that there is some great social problem to solve because many females don't like race cars and are not interested in racing cars.

This reminds me of the desire for everybody to be normal, totally ignoring the fact that the majority of achievements by mankind were the result of people who were not normal. People who would take unnecessary risk, or explore questions while avoiding all social functions. Whatever. Not everybody is going to be the same, nor do we want that to be so.

Posted by The Other Steve | July 10, 2008 4:04 PM

If you get a 500 error, the Atlantic server has posted the comment. If you refresh the browser with the same URL up, it will post again. It shouldn't be hard to fix the software so it doesn't do that, but it also shouldn't be hard to fix it so it doesn't generate a 500 error after posting half the time.

Posted by MattXIV | July 10, 2008 4:10 PM

This is not the first study to show that video game playing can improve visuospatial ability. It is also not the first study to show that the gender gap in visuospatial ability can be improved through training -- there are several studies, with larger sample sizes, indicating both.

What this study does is adds another important piece to the puzzle, showing that video game play can close the gender gap in visuospatial ability. Should we change educational policy based on this one study? No. Should we consider funding larger studies? Absolutely.

Posted by Dave Munger | July 10, 2008 5:08 PM

"At issue is a very simple premise. Are people allowed to do that which they either desire to do, or are good at?"

Yes, so for example, if (for example) we're talking about a difference in academic performance between group A and group B , then "at issue is not whether a difference exists, or if that difference is entirely socially based or partly genetic."

Rather, it's whether, in an extremely bare literalistic & legalistic-sounding sense, whether members of group B are allowed to 'do' academic-based jobs and hobbies and such if they want to or are good at them. Whether the existing situation would have prevented many members of group B from becoming good at them - not just messages and attitudes, but also actions; whether constructed and contingent social structures make it extremely difficult for many group B members to become equally good (or, if practical, often reasonably desiring) at them, whether all this would even led many members of group B to quash, abandon, or nurse unfulfilled any desire to do them. What, given constant social messages and conditioning, "allowed" really means if, for example the folks doing evaluating and hiring will, if there's any room for subjective measurement, consistently judge members of group B lower than members of group A, even when they're actually (unknowingly) judging the exact same piece of work, just presented as being by a group A member or a group B member . . . (And, of course, if evaluation/hiring of group B members shoots up after those folks are not provided with ways to distinguish As from Bs . . )

Take racecar driving. Ok, women are literally allowed to race at Indy, just the same as men. But in order to do so - any possible on-average genetic differences aside (even though I'm sure on the Pleistocene savannah proto-men drove racecars after big game while women huddled at home playing with babies, gossiping, and occasionally desultorily poking at some berry bushes or edible roots, and that this shapes all of human society to this day.), they have to overcome still strong social attitudes and conditioning that says No!, including a social environment possibly set up in a way that channels them away from various other activities which would lead, stepwise, into increasing skill and familiarity which transfers right over. They have to be able to imagine this as a meaningful future. They have to deal with not becoming utterly discouraged & giving up due to the predictable avalanche of all sorts of crap directed at them while they become 'good enough' (and possibly later). They have to deal with any instance of non-perfect performance being taken as conclusive evidence that they don't have what it takes - indeed, conclusive evidence that women don't have what it takes.) [xkcd]. And on and on.

(And of course, men face a similar (although not exactly the same) situation in terms of equivalent things.)

"But that doesn't mean that there is some great social problem to solve because many females don't like race cars and are not interested in racing cars."

But, of course, the issue isn't merely "many females don't like race cars and are not interested in racing cars." - the 'sit and spin' mental rotation thing has been used as one of the ways to claim: hey, look, women are just naturally not going to be as good at physics and math and engineering and such and so hey, it's no surprise that women are underrepresented in those fields (ignoring the bit about how this sort of thing's been said about women and every mental activity from reading to biology and medicine, and these results aren't cross-culturally consistent) and oh, by the way during the time I've been in charge of X University, the number of women being offered tenured positions there plummeted . . .

Posted by Dan S. | July 10, 2008 7:18 PM

If you really want to bend your brain play Portal. It forces you to think of viewing the same geometry from two different frames of reference at the same time. Fun!

Posted by bago | July 10, 2008 7:33 PM

Plus Portal has the funniest credits song I've ever heard. I think Valve has created a monster here -- they're going to have to find a place for not only Chell, the Portal protagonist, but GlaDOS, the crazy computer, as well, in HL 2 Episode 3 and beyond. (Considering how "she" handles relationships, it would be hilarious if GlaDOS fell in love with Gordon Freeman.)

Posted by sunsin | July 10, 2008 7:47 PM

I work with virtual reality professionally, and I hate the meme that girls perform worse on visual tasks like this compared to boys. Our study has been going on since 2000, has hundreds of participants, and I can assure you, we've seen no such evidence.

As has already been pointed out, there's some serious limitations to the specific findings you cited, and that is generally true with so-called "definitive" studies on the subject.

Also, I'm a life-long video game freak - the meme that girls don't play video games? Also crap. :)

That is all.

Posted by Alison | July 10, 2008 7:52 PM

I would interpret these findings with great caution. The findings are effectively based on data from three men and seven women (since half of the total sample was allocated to the control condition). Men seemed to retain a significant advantage over women even after testing although the very low statistical power of this study makes that impossible to test properly.

Right. The sample size is so small the results are basically meaningless.

Posted by Mixner | July 10, 2008 8:03 PM

Leaving aside whether or not the results here are accurate, "The Other Steve"'s comment is spectacularly ignorant.

"At issue is not whether a difference exists, or if that difference is entirely socially based or partly genetic."

Except, this pretty much IS the issue? Few people genuinely believe that a usually sex-segregated sport like weightlifting should be integrated for the sake of gender equality. Most people recognize that there are very real genetic constraints which make it much more difficult for women to produce Arnold levels of muscle.

On the other hand, the supposed genetic superiority of men to women in visual/spatial skils is routinely used to justify the low numbers of women in jobs ranging from driving trucks to engineering to the military. If women can improve these skills through training, this strongly suggests that either women need to be trained differently or that there are institutional factors which are keeping them out.

Both of these things are alterable with policy changes and could significantly increase the access of women to these careers, which is a good thing, but you have to do this kind of study first to answer the question. Unless you're the kind of guy who prefers his women to be uneducated and economically dependent?

Posted by Paper Mac | July 11, 2008 4:27 AM

I now have a good reason to give in to my daughter and buy her an xbox or whatever platform is required. I just wonder if she will follow my advice more after the training session.

Posted by tomj | July 11, 2008 11:00 PM