The psychologist L. L. Thurstone was one of the first academics to recognize the "existence and independence of spatial intelligence." In 1938, Thurstone argued that spatial intelligence can be broken down into three areas: "recognizing an object from different angles, imagining movement of internal parts of a spatial configuration and determining spatial relationships with respect to one's own body." More recently, in his theory of multiple intelligences from 1983, psychologist Howard Gardner argued that spatial ability is one of seven key components of intelligence.
According to a student project on spatial intelligence at the University of Limerick, the right hemisphere is responsible for spatial awareness and intelligence. In people with a right hemisphere brain injury, for example, scientists have found that sufferers demonstrate problems in recognizing objects, even familiar ones, and with navigating an unfamiliar space or reading a map. The frontal lobes of the brain also play a role in spatial intelligence, as they are responsible for "remembering a spatial location."
There are numerous tests that can measure a person's spatial ability and intelligence. Designed in 1976, the Paper Folding Test involves folding and punching a hole in a piece of paper. The participant is then shown five diagrams and asked to show how the appear will look when it is unfolded. Another test is the Vandenburg Mental Rotation Test, created in 1978. This involves showing the participant a figure of blocks and asking him which two of four possible figures are rotations of the original example.
When measuring spatial ability and intelligence, men and women tend to perform differently. Men consistently outperform women on Piaget's Water-Level task, for example, where subjects are shown a picture of container with a certain level of water in it. They are then shown an empty, tilted container and are asked to draw the correct water line. In a mental rotation task conducted by Ross Vasta at the University of New York, men also outperformed women in 3D video simulations. This difference in performance may be linked to the fact that men have greater video-game experience --- thus suggesting that environmental factors may also play a role in spatial intelligence