Gender differences in remembering and inferring spatial distances

Abstract

The abilities of males and females to make spatial inferences were compared. Spatial inference is concerned with the ability to work out new spatial information from memory. In two experiments, participants had to study line drawings depicting shapes linked either by straight or meandering lines. Afterwards, they had to remember the straight-line distances or to infer the straight-line distances. Several spatial abilities were also assessed: perceptual discrimination, mental rotation, and visuo-spatial working memory span. The results showed that males outperformed females in spatial inference and mental rotation. Experiment 2 extended the study to old people. The results replicated and clarified those obtained in Experiment 1. Spatial inference and mental rotation showed age-related and gender-related differences; in addition, age reduced the visuo-spatial memory span. Overall, the findings suggest that gender differences favouring males are maximised with tasks requiring active processing and strategic control of metric information.

Wayfinding: The effects of large displays and 3-D perception

“…Similarly, Astur et al (2004) found that women were as accurate as men at finding target locations when tested in a virtual radial maze, albeit slower. Consequently, the sex differences observed in speed and path length in Astur's study and in our study do not seem to be related to knowledge of target locations but instead must be related to other factors such as differences in navigational preferences (Dabbs, Chang, Strong, & Milun, 1998;Lambrey & Berthoz, 2007;Malinowski, 2001;Postma et al, 2004;Ruggiero, Sergi, & Iachini, 2008;Sandstrom, Kaufman, & Huettel, 1998;Saucier et al, 2002).…”

Development of egocentric and allocentric spatial representations from childhood to elderly age

“…Executive functions are necessary to acquire, combine and select spatial strategies, to plan and monitor behavioral motor responses according to environmental requirements (Lithfous et al, 2013;Vasilyeva & Lourenco, 2012). Some evidence has indeed reported strong associations between egocentric encoding and executive functions (e.g., Borella, Carretti, & De Beni, 2008;Iachini et al, 2005;Lithfous et al, 2013;Ruggiero, Sergi, & Iachini, 2008;Sanders, Holtzer, Lipton, Hall, & Verghese, 2008; see also Cornoldi & Vecchi, 2003;Craik, 1986;Meneghetti, Fiore, Borella, & De Beni, 2011;Park, 2000). Similarly, in childhood, the capacity to efficiently use reference frames would occur at about 6 years or later (Nardini et al, 2008(Nardini et al, , 2009Vasilyeva & Lourenco, 2012), as a consequence of delayed maturation of hippocampus and surrounding areas and frontal lobes as proved by myelination process, gray matter reduction, synaptogenesis, and resting metabolism (e.g., Fuster, 2002;Lenroot & Giedd, 2006;Newcombe & Huttenlocher, 2003;Pfefferbaum et al, 1994;Tsujimoto, 2008).…”

The effect of age on egocentric and allocentric spatial frames of reference

“…So far, age-related changes in basic visuospatial abilities, mental imagery and navigational abilities have been investigated (see Ruggiero et al 2008;Iachini et al 2005). Laboratory-based psychometric tasks, such as mental rotation, and more ecological tasks, such as directionfinding and map learning have been used (Barrash 1994;Wilkniss et al 1997;Kirasic 1991).…”