Digital Divide: Can Computer and Videogame Usage equalize the Gender differences in Mental Rotation Ability?

Many studies with different settings have confirmed that there is a performance difference in spatial skills between men and women, especially in the domain of mental rotation. The mental rotation performance is influenced by many different factors, such as training, sexual orientation, age, hormonal level or psychological influence. Video game usage positively affects the performance on mental rotation tasks and as this special form of training is favored by men, this training gap could possibly be identified as main influencing factor. Question is whether the digital divide in video game usage widens or slowly disappears. Currently men are better trained because of their choice of video games and the amount of time invested in training. As the performance gap is not perceivable when the mental rotation test deploys real 3-dimensional figures instead of 2-dimensional representations of 3dimensional figures. It might be possible that the advent of 3D presentations evens out the MR performance gap. Statistics are showing that the amount of game playing females has risen over the years. The creation of appealing game titles for women, which are exercising spatial skills, could balance this training difference and along with it the stability of different performance levels in mental rotation tasks between men and women.