Visual imagery and STEM occupational attainment: Gender matters

Science, technology, engineering and mathematical (STEM) occupations are widely recognized as important for innovation and economic growth, yet there is a STEM labour shortage, particularly among women. We examined how individual differences in visual imagery relate to characteristics of STEM occupations using a novel coding scheme for the dimensional quantification of occupational attributes. In a discovery cohort of 4545 online participants, we found that spatial thinking positively associated with STEM occupations across genders. Object imagery (mnemonic vividness), however, was negatively associated with STEM occupations that require computational processes, such as software engineers. This negative association was present for males, but not females. We extended and replicated these findings in samples of 1891 individuals with aphantasia (congenitally low imagery) and 186 university undergraduates. Consistent with experimental, observational, and neurobiological evidence of a potentially competitive relationship between imagery and reasoning, these results suggest a role for nonspatial, nonvisual abstract analytic abilities in computational STEM disciplines independent of spatial imagery. These abilities promote computational STEM achievement in males but not females, who may be biased away for social reasons. Visual imagery style could serve as a marker of STEM potential, and selection into computational STEM may draw on skills distinct from other STEM fields. • Spatial vs. object visual imagery differentially relate to STEM achievement. • Spatial imagery is positively related to STEM achievement in males and females. • Object imagery is negatively related to computational STEM achievement, but only for males. • Females with high computational abilities are less likely than males to advance in computational STEM professions.