Developmental and Sex Differences of Gifted Children's Perception of Liquid Horizontally

Gifted students at both primary and junior high levels were examined for their ability to use external frames of reference, as measured by their perception and understanding of the principle that still water remains invariantly horizontal. Developmentally, the gifted appear to be similar to non-gifted normal populations in regard to both acquisition of this cognitive task and sex differences. Giftedness is evidently not sufficient to prevent sex differences from developing for this type of cognitive task. Moreover, specific training involving discussion of the task enabled the gifted primary level students to verbalize the rule or principle of liquid horizontality, but it did not influence their ability to apply it functionally. For the junior high students the training was sufficient to erase the sex differences on both the application and verbalization phases of the task. Potential instructional implications of these results are discussed for gifted learners.