Brief Report Is There a Relationship Between the Performance in a Chronometric Mental-Rotations Test and Salivary Testosterone and Estradiol Levels in Children Aged 9–14 Years? ABSTRACT: The consistent gender differences favoring males in some spatial abilities like mental rotation have raised the question of whether testosterone or other gonadal hormones contribute to these differences—especially because such gender differences seem to appear mainly from the age of puberty on. Studies generally suggest that spatial ability is facilitated by moderately high testoster- one levels (i.e., levels that are relatively high for females and relatively low for males). However, the role of sex steroids for mental-rotation performance of (pre-) pubertal children has not been the focus of research, yet. In our study, the relationships between different aspects of mental-rotation performance (accu- racy, reaction time, rotation speed) and salivary testosterone and estradiol levels were investigated. Subjects were 109 children (51 boys and 58 girls) aged between 9 and 14 years (M ¼ 11.41, SD ¼ 1.74). They performed a chronometric mental-rotations test, in which the stimuli consisted of three-dimensional drawings of Shepard and Metzler cube figures. In addition, saliva samples were gathered for the analysis of free testosterone and estradiol levels. Results showed a significant gender difference in reaction time and rotational speed in favor of boys, and a significant age, but no gender difference in testosterone and estradiol levels. We found no significant relationships between hormonal levels and any measure of mental-rotation performance. ß 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol Keywords: mental rotation; gender differences; pre-puberty; gonadal hormones; chronometric test; rotation speed INTRODUCTION Gender differences in spatial abilities have generated a great deal of controversy concerning their size (e.g., Linn & Petersen, 1985; Voyer, Voyer, & Bryden, 1995), their importance (e.g., Wai, Lubinsky, & Benbow, 2009) and their development (e.g., Geiser, Lehmann, & Eid, 2008; Quaiser-Pohl, Rohe, & Amberger, 2010) as well as their possible psycho-social or biological causes (e.g., Mo e, 2012; Newcombe, 2002; Pezaris & Casey, 1991). Psycho-social theories argue that gender differ- ences are based on the influence of experience, attitudes, or stereotypes (Mo e & Pazzaglia, 2006; Newcombe & Frick, 2010; Sander, Quaiser-Pohl, & Stigler, 2010), whereas biological theories stress the Manuscript Received: 7 November 2014 Manuscript Accepted: 28 June 2015 Correspondence to: Claudia Quaiser-Pohl E-mail: quaiser@uni-koblenz.de Article first published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/dev.21333  ß 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Developmental Psychobiology Claudia Quaiser-Pohl 1 Petra Jansen 2 Jennifer Lehmann 2 Brigitte M. Kudielka 3 1 Institute of Psychology University of Koblenz-Landau Universitaetsstr. 1, D-56070 Koblenz Germany 2 Institute of Sport Science University of Regensburg Regensburg Germany 3 Institute of Psychology University of Regensburg Regensburg Germany