title: Judgment of line orientation depends on gender, education, and type of error.
abstract: Visuospatial tasks are particularly proficient at eliciting gender differences during neuropsychological performance. Here we tested the hypothesis that gender and education are related to different types of visuospatial errors on a task of line orientation that allowed the independent scoring of correct responses ("hits", or H) and one type of incorrect responses ("commission errors", or CE). We studied 343 volunteers of roughly comparable ages and with different levels of education. Education and gender were significantly associated with H scores, which were higher in men and in the groups with higher education. In contrast, the differences between men and women on CE depended on education. We concluded that (I) the ability to find the correct responses differs from the ability to avoid the wrong responses amidst an array of possible alternatives, and that (II) education interacts with gender to promote a stable performance on CE earlier in men than in women.
authors.affiliation: Medical Neuropsychology Unit, School of Medicine Rio de Janeiro State Federal University, Secretaria da 7 feminine Enfermaria, R. Mariz e Barros 775, Tijuca, 20270-901 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ecmad.rlk@terra.com.br
authors.forename: Egas M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Caparelli-Dáquer
authors.forename: Ricardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Oliveira-Souza
authors.forename: Pedro F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Moreira Filho
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013028:Space Perception; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult