Do Landmarks Help or Hinder Women in Route Learning?

Abstract

Previous research on route learning has demonstrated that men learn routes faster and with fewer errors than women, whereas women are able to recall more landmarks along the route. The present study was aimed at investigating whether landmarks help or hinder women when they learn a route. 47 female and 37 male undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of two conditions, in which they learned a route on a map with landmarks (the Landmark condition) or with no landmarks (the No-Landmark condition). Men outperformed women in the Landmark condition, learning the route in less time, with fewer errors, and in fewer trials than women did. In contrast, in the No-Landmark condition, no significant differences were found between men and women on the route-learning measures. Men learned the route faster and more accurately when landmarks were present than when they were not, but the performance of women was not affected by the presence or absence of landmarks. These results suggest that men and women may employ landmarks differently when learning a route. Men may use the positions of landmarks to make distance and direction judgments, whereas women may label the landmarks and memorize these labels, which interferes with learning the route.