We conducted what is likely the first large-scale comprehensive eye tracking investigation of the cognitive processes involved in the psychometric mental rotation task with three experiments comparing the performance of men and women on tests of mental rotation with blocks and human figures as stimuli. In all 3 experiments, men achieved higher mean accuracy than women on both tests and all participants showed improved performance on the human figures compared with the blocks. Experiment 1 used a moving window paradigm to elicit a piecemeal processing strategy, whereas Experiment 2 utilized that approach to encourage a holistic processing strategy. In these 2 experiments the pattern of eye fixations suggested that differences in processing between blocks and human figures can be accounted for by the greater difficulty of rotating block compared with human figures. Results also produced little support for the hypothesis that men favor a holistic strategy whereas women favor a piecemeal approach. In addition, these experiments did not support the notion that using human figures as stimuli promotes a holistic strategy whereas block figures invoke a piecemeal strategy. As a follow up, in Experiment 3 we used a free viewing procedure and examined 4 possible explanations of sex differences in mental rotation predicting different patterns of eye tracking (cognitive processing style, leaping, ocular efficiency) or offline processing (working memory). Results provided partial support for variations of the cognitive processing style hypotheses. The implications for common explanations of sex differences in mental rotation are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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心理旋转测试中的性别差异：通过眼动追踪直接操纵策略。

我们进行了可能的首次大规模综合眼动追踪调查，涉及与心理测验的心理旋转任务有关的认知过程，该实验进行了三个实验，将男性和女性在智力旋转测试中的表现与障碍物和人物作为刺激进行了比较。在全部3个实验中，男性和女性的平均准确率均高于女性，并且与被试相比，所有参与者的人像表现均得到改善。实验1使用移动窗口范式来得出零碎的处理策略，而实验2使用该方法来鼓励整体处理策略。在这两个实验中，眼睛注视的模式表明，与人像相比，旋转块的难度更大，可以解释人像与人像之间的加工差异。结果也很少支持男性偏爱整体策略而女性偏爱零散策略的假设。此外，这些实验不支持以下观点：使用人物作为刺激因素会促进整体策略，而方块人物则采用零碎策略。作为后续，在实验3中，我们使用了免费的观看程序，并检查了4种可能的解释，说明了心理旋转中的性别差异，这些差异预测了眼动追踪（认知加工风格，跳跃，眼部效率）或离线加工（工作记忆）的不同模式。结果为认知加工风格假说的变化提供了部分支持。讨论了有关心理旋转中性别差异的常见解释的含义。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2020 APA，保留所有权利）。