Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate a causal link between raw mental spatial ability and its relationship to throwing accuracy. The process involved the examination of a causal link between spatial abilities, as measured by the Vandenberg Mental Rotation Test (MRT), and an attempt to determine the strength of the relationship to performance on the three measures of throwing accuracy. Past spatial experience and biological sex were examined separately since they have been shown to differentiate performance on tests of spatial ability and throwing accuracy. Explanations for sexually dimorphic performance on the two tasks were explored in light of both evolutionary theory and social role theory. The study used 74 right-handed students who were enrolled in lower division anthropology courses at Texas A&M University, College Station. A correlation between spatial ability and throwing accuracy was significant within the total population, however, it was not maintained when the sample population was broken down into its subsets of male and female populations. This fact suggests that there is a relatively weak relation between the types of spatial ability employed in static paper-and pencil tasks as opposed to throwing accuracy. The results from the current study substantiate a significant male advantage in both mental rotation ability and throwing accuracy. The data does not support previous findings that suggest a positive correlation between mental rotation ability and throwing accuracy. Instead the present data gives tentative evidence that the spatial analysis involved in target-directed motor tasks is separable from the abilities measured by the Vandenberg MRT, as evidenced by the lack of correlation between the two tasks. The male advantage found for throwing accuracy and mental rotation ability was not obviously related to experimental variables since males and females were found to have comparable past spatial experience, as quantified by the assessment involved in this research. As a consequence, the results of the research are more compatible with an evolutionary explanation for the origin of sen differences in both spatial ability and throwing accuracy.
Gillespie, Allen W (2000). Spatial ability and throwing accuracy: an evolutionary perspective. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -2000 -THESIS -G54.