Several tests of mental rotation ability have been used to investigate its development and the origins of sex differences. One of the most used tests is the mental rotation test (MRT) by Vandenberg and Kuse. A limitation of the MRT is that it is a pen-and-paper test with 2D images of 3D objects. This is a challenge to the ecological validity of the MRT because mental rotation typically involves physical 3D objects that are also physically manipulated. The purpose of the present study was to compare mental rotation ability as evaluated by the MRT to three new tasks with physical objects (toy bricks) that were physically manipulated. The different tasks allowed us to vary the processing demands on mental rotation while standardizing other aspects of the tasks. Fifty-nine females and twenty-eight males completed the LMR and HMR conditions (low- and high-mental rotation demands, respectively) of the brick building task (BBT), a visual search task, and the MRT. As demands on mental rotation for the BBT increased, performance decreased and a sex difference, with males outperforming females, increased. There were correlations between all tasks, but they were larger between the versions of the BBT with the MRT. The results suggest that spatial skill is an assembly of interrelated subskills and that the sex difference is sensitive to the demands on mental rotation and dimensionality crossing. The benefits of the BBT are that it is ecologically valid, avoids dimensionality crossing, and the demands on mental rotation can be manipulated.

一些心理旋转能力测试已被用来研究其发展和性别差异的起源。最常用的测试之一是 Vandenberg 和 Kuse 的心理旋转测试 (MRT)。MRT 的局限性在于它是使用 3D 对象的 2D 图像进行的纸笔测试。这是对 MRT 生态有效性的挑战，因为心理旋转通常涉及物理 3D 对象，而这些对象也受到物理操纵。本研究的目的是将 MRT 评估的心理旋转能力与物理操作的物理对象（玩具积木）的三个新任务进行比较。不同的任务使我们能够改变心理旋转的处理要求，同时标准化任务的其他方面。59 名女性和 28 名男性完成了积木任务 (BBT)、视觉搜索任务和 MRT 的 LMR 和 HMR 条件（分别为低和高心理旋转要求）。随着 BBT 对心理旋转的要求增加，表现下降，并且性别差异（男性优于女性）增加。所有任务之间都存在相关性，但 BBT 与 MRT 版本之间的相关性更大。结果表明，空间技能是相互关联的子技能的集合，并且性别差异对心理旋转和维度交叉的需求很敏感。BBT的好处是它在生态上有效，避免维度交叉，并且可以操纵心理旋转的需求。