Do All Science Disciplines Rely on Spatial Abilities? Preliminary Evidence from Self-Report Questionnaires Mary Hegarty 1 , Raymond D. Crookes 2 , Drew Dara-Abrams 1 & Thomas F. Shipley 2 1 University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9660 USA {hegarty, dara-abrams}@psych.ucsb.edu 2 Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19144 USA {rcrookes, tshipley}@temple.edu Abstract. Spatial abilities are correlated with success in science. However, research on this topic has not focused on possible differences in the spatial demands of different scientific fields. Furthermore, there is a partial dissociation between spatial abilities involved in dealing with the space of environments (large-scale spatial abilities) and those involved in dealing with the space of objects (small-scale spatial abilities). We used on-line self-report measures to collect preliminary data on the spatial abilities of scientists in different fields, as well as humanists and individuals in professional fields. Geoscientists had the highest self-report ratings of both environmental and small-scale spatial abilities, whereas geographers had relatively high self ratings of environmental spatial abilities and engineers had relatively high self ratings of small-scale spatial abilities. Other scientific disciplines did not differ from the mean in self reported spatial abilities. Self ratings of verbal ability were uncorrelated with self ratings of spatial abilities and, as expected, were highest for humanities specialists. Keywords: spatial ability, visualization, scale, science disciplines, STEM fields 1 Introduction Spatial thinking appears to be central to many scientific domains. For example, geologists reason about the physical processes that lead to the formation of structures such as mountains and canyons, chemists develop models of the structure of molecules, and zoologists map the tracks of animals to gain insights into their foraging behavior. Thus it is not surprising that measures of spatial ability are correlated with success in various scientific domains, such as physics [1, 2], chemistry [3], geology [4], mathematics [5], engineering [6], and medicine [7, 8]. A recent longitudinal study of gifted high school graduates indicated that spatial ability was an important predictor of their participation in science and engineering disciplines 15 years later, after controlling for SAT mathematics and verbal scores [9].