A new analysis using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) has found that children who engaged in more masculine-typical play behaviors at 3.5 years old tend to perform better on mental rotation tasks by the time they reach age 13 — regardless of whether they are boys or girls. The mental rotation task, often used to gauge spatial visualization ability, is a key measure of how well someone can mentally manipulate and interpret objects in space. The study was published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.
Mental rotation ability refers to how quickly and accurately an individual can imagine and assess objects when they are rotated in space. It serves as a core indicator of spatial reasoning — a fundamental part of human cognition. Individuals with stronger mental rotation skills can efficiently determine whether two objects are identical or different when viewed from various angles, while those with lower ability tend to take longer or make more errors.
Spatial reasoning plays a crucial role in fields like engineering, navigation, medical imaging, and even sports. It is also used in aptitude testing, cognitive development research, and neuroscience to explore how the brain processes spatial information. Numerous studies have consistently shown that, on average, males outperform females in mental rotation tasks, particularly when the rotations involve large angles. These gender differences are considered moderate to large in scale and may stem from both biological factors — such as hormonal influences — and sociocultural influences, including more frequent exposure to spatially engaging play and activities among boys.
Study authors Karson T. F. Kung and Melissa Hines aimed to determine whether early childhood play styles could predict later mental rotation performance. They hypothesized that children who displayed more masculine play behaviors at 3.5 years of age would demonstrate higher mental rotation abilities during adolescence compared to children who engaged in more feminine-typical play. They also expected that “control” children, selected randomly, would score higher than children with predominantly feminine play patterns.
The researchers used data from the ALSPAC project — a large, long-term UK study that followed over 14,000 mothers and their children. The project recruited women from the Avon region of Southwest England who were expecting to give birth between April 1991 and December 1992, tracking their children’s growth and development over time.
For this specific analysis, the final sample included participants who took part in a follow-up at age 13. The sample comprised 66 masculine boys, 59 masculine girls, 81 feminine boys, 68 feminine girls, and 55 control boys and 67 control girls — representing roughly 60% of the original group categorized based on their early play behavior.
At 3.5 years old, parents completed the Preschool Activities Inventory, which assessed the type of play their children preferred. Based on these results, participants were classified into masculine, feminine, or control categories. A decade later, when the children reached 13 years of age, they completed the spatial relations subscale of the Primary Mental Abilities Test, designed to evaluate mental rotation capabilities.
The findings revealed that children who were classified as masculine in their play behavior achieved significantly higher scores in the mental rotation test compared to those classified as feminine. Notably, this relationship was not affected by the child’s sex and remained consistent even after adjusting for socioeconomic status, academic performance, vocabulary, fine motor skills, and other early childhood factors.
“Sex-typical play behavior in the preschool period is related to mental rotation performance 10 years later in adolescence. Preschool sex-typical play behavior may have long-term implications for spatial skills development beyond childhood,” the study authors concluded.
The research provides valuable insights into how early play behavior might influence the development of spatial skills later in life. However, despite its longitudinal nature, the study does not establish causation. It remains unclear whether engaging in masculine-typical play causes better mental rotation abilities or whether children with naturally stronger spatial skills are simply more drawn to masculine play activities.
The paper, “A 10‑Year Longitudinal Relationship Between Preschool Sex‑Typical Play Behavior at Age 3.5 Years and Mental Rotation Performance in Adolescence at Age 13 Years,” was authored by Karson T. F. Kung and Melissa Hines.
