Assessing Mental Rotation Ability in a Virtual Environment with an Oculus Rift

Abstract

Many studies have found gender differences in mental rotation ability in young adults when completing mental rotation tests on paper and pencil (e.g., Peters et al., 1995; Vandenberg & Kuse, 1978). Two previous studies have been unable to replicate these findings when testing mental rotation ability inside of a virtual environment (Parsons et al., 2004; Rizzo et al., 2001). We created a new virtual mental rotation test (VMRT) based on a full, validated test of mental rotation ability (MRT-A; Peters et al., 1995) that 128 participants (79 females) completed while wearing an Oculus Rift DK1. Our data replicate previous findings of paper and pencil tests of mental rotation ability: men scored approximately one standard deviation higher ( d = .90) than women.