Activational effects of testosterone on spatial abilities

Cilj istraživanja je bio provjeriti postoje li u različitim prostornim sposobnostima dnevne varijacije koje bi se mogle objasniti pretpostavljenim aktivacijskim utjecajima testosterona te, ako postoje, jesu li te varijacije identične za različite kategorije prostornih sposobnosti. Kako testosteron u funkciji doba dana varira samo kod muškaraca, kao komparabilnu skupinu smo testirali i grupu studentica. U istraživanju je ukupno sudjelovalo 125 studenata i studentica Filozofskog i Kineziološkog fakulteta u Zagrebu. Korištena su tri testa, po jedan iz svake od kategorija prostornih sposobnosti: mentalnih rotacija, prostorne percepcije te prostornog predočavanja. Testove su sudionici rješavali dvaput u razmaku od tjedan dana - jednom u jutarnjim, drugi put u večernjim satima, a redoslijed testiranja je bio rotiran. Dobiveni podaci obrađeni su analizom varijance za ponovljena mjerenja. Obrazac rezultata upućuje na zaključak da su aktivacijski efekti testosterona djelovali samo na uradak u Testu mentalnih rotacija. Iako glavni efekt doba dana nije bio značajan, uočena je trostruka interakcija spola, vremena i redoslijeda testiranja. Budući da se u ovom istraživanju samo Test mentalnih rotacija pokazao spolno pristranim, ovaj je nalaz u skladu s prethodnim istraživanjima koja su pokazala da aktivacijski utjecaji spolnih hormona postoje samo kod spolno pristranih testova.The aim of this study was to check if there are diurnal variations in different aspects of spatial abilities that could be explained by assumed activational effects of testosterone, and if they exist, to determine whether they are identical for all categories of spatial abilities. Since testosterone levels show diurnal variations only in male participants, female participants were used as a comparable group. A sample of 125 students of Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Faculty of Kinesiology from University of Zagreb solved three visuo-spatial tests for three categories of spatial abilities: mental rotation, spatial perception and spatial visualization. Participants solved all tests two times in a repeated measures design; once in the morning, second time in the evening, and the order of testing was rotated. Interval between two measurements was approximately one week. Repeated measures ANOVA was used to determine within- and between-group differences at the follow-up. Results indicate that activational effects had influence only on mental rotations test. Although the main effect of time of day was not statistically significant, a triple interaction between gender, time of day and order of testing was statistically significant. Since mental rotations test was the only gender-biased test in this study, these findings are in accordance with previous studies, which show that activational effects affect performance only in gender-biased tests