Sex differences and correlations in a virtual Morris water task, a virtual radial arm maze, and mental rotation

Astur, Robert S.; Tropp, Jennifer; Sava, Simona; Constable, R. Todd; Markus, Etan J.

doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2003.08.024

Cited by 281 publications

(274 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Participants with and without cognitive impairment differed significantly with respect to age [t(54) = 2.12, P < 0.05] and education [t(54) = 2.19, P < 0.05], and the result for sex differences approached significance [χ 2 (1) = 3.21, P = 0.073]. These variables have also been found to relate to spatial navigation ability in previous studies (30)(31)(32)(33) and therefore were controlled in the analyses. Total brain (model 1), right (model 2), and left (model 3) hippocampal volume measures were added sequentially.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 72%

Spatial navigation impairment is proportional to right hippocampal volume

Nedelská

Andel

Laczó

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

142

104

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Cognitive deficits in older adults attributable to Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology are featured early on by hippocampal impairment. Among these individuals, deterioration in spatial navigation, manifested by poor hippocampus-dependent allocentric navigation, may occur well before the clinical onset of dementia. Our aim was to determine whether allocentric spatial navigation impairment would be proportional to right hippocampal volume loss irrespective of general brain atrophy. We also contrasted the respective spatial navigation scores of the real-space human Morris water maze with its corresponding 2D computer version. We included 42 cognitively impaired patients with either amnestic mild cognitive impairment (n = 23) or mild and moderate AD (n = 19), and 14 cognitively intact older controls. All participants underwent 1.5T MRI brain scanning with subsequent automatic measurement of the total brain and hippocampal (right and left) volumes. Allocentric spatial navigation was tested in the real-space version of the human Morris water maze and in its corresponding computer version. Participants used two navigational cues to locate an invisible goal independent of the start position. We found that smaller right hippocampal volume was associated with poorer navigation performance in both the real-space (β = −0.62, P < 0.001) and virtual (β = −0.43, P = 0.026) versions, controlling for demographic variables, total brain and left hippocampal volumes. In subsequent analyses, the results were significant in cognitively impaired (P ≤ 0.05) but not in cognitively healthy (P > 0.59) subjects. The respective real-space and virtual scores strongly correlated with each other. Our findings indicate that the right hippocampus plays a critical role in allocentric navigation, particularly when cognitive impairment is present.P ersons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) (1, 2) and with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) (3), who are known to be at higher risk for developing AD, experience difficulties with spatial navigation. Based on animal research, two basic navigation types were distinguished (4). Egocentric navigation is route or body centered and is dependent mainly on parietal cortices and caudate nucleus (4-8). The more flexible and complex allocentric type is world centered and it is dependent mainly on the hippocampus (5, 9). In humans, medial temporal lobe function is highly lateralized with the right hippocampus predominantly associated with spatial navigation and topographical memory (10). Recent research has underscored the importance of the hippocampus for spatial navigation in cognitively impaired subjects (11,12). For example, a case study of a patient with early AD (13) reported a distinct navigation deficit indicative of hippocampal atrophy. However, structural background of the allocentric navigation impairment has not yet been entirely elucidated, particularly in the real-space environment.The navigation disability in AD and MCI patients has been found to involve selective impairment of spatial cognition as...

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 72%

Spatial navigation impairment is proportional to right hippocampal volume

Nedelská

Andel

Laczó

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

142

104

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“…Naturally, researchers have attempted to compare the allocentric spatial relational memory abilities of men and women using these virtual paradigms. Consistent with studies testing mental rotation and wayfinding, these virtual reality studies have identified some gender differences, with men typically performing better than women on a variety of measures such as the latency to find goal locations or complete mazes [2,3,19,36,46], or the number of errors (i.e., wrong turns) made while solving the task [33]. Although it is clear that these studies of spatial abilities in virtual environments demonstrate that men and women perform differentially, what is not clear is (1) whether the measures used specifically assess spatial memory, and thus whether their results can be interpreted to conclude that men have a better memory for spatial locations than women, or (2) whether similar gender differences in allocentric spatial memory exist in real-world (as compared to virtual) environments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 62%

“…Recently, researchers studying human spatial memory have taken advantage of the development of 3D graphics and computer technology to design tasks which take place in virtual environments, and which aim to emulate the design of these tasks used in animals [2,3,19,33,36,46,51]. Subjects explore these virtual environments by using a joystick to move (i.e., shift their first-person visual perspective) throughout the virtual environment that is displayed on a computer screen.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial relational learning and memory abilities do not differ between men and women in a real-world, open-field environment

Lavenex

2010

Behavioural Brain Research

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This study assesses gender differences in spatial and non-spatial relational learning and memory in adult humans behaving freely in a real-world, open-field environment. In Experiment 1, we tested the use of proximal landmarks as conditional cues allowing subjects to predict the location of rewards hidden in one of two sets of three distinct locations. Subjects were tested in two different conditions: (1) when local visual cues marked the potentially-rewarded locations, and (2) when no local visual cues marked the potentially-rewarded locations. We found that only 17 of 20 adults (8 males, 9 females) used the proximal landmarks to predict the locations of the rewards. Although females exhibited higher exploratory behavior at the beginning of testing, males and females discriminated the potentially-rewarded locations similarly when local visual cues were present. Interestingly, when the spatial and local information conflicted in predicting the reward locations, males considered both spatial and local information, whereas females ignored the spatial information. However, in the absence of local visual cues females discriminated the potentially-rewarded locations as well as males. In Experiment 2, subjects (9 males, 9 females) were tested with three asymmetrically-arranged rewarded locations, which were marked by local cues on alternate trials. Again, females discriminated the rewarded locations as well as males in the presence or absence of local cues. In sum, although particular aspects of task performance might differ between genders, we found no evidence that women have poorer allocentric spatial relational learning and memory abilities than men in a real-world, open-field environment.

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“…Navigation in computer-generated tasks also produces gender differences. A male advantage in time taken to locate a hidden (invisible) goal in such tasks by US college students has been hypothesized to be the result of men and women using different navigational methods (Astur, Tropp, Sava, Constable, & Markus, 2004). Sandstrom et al (1998) found a similar pattern when men and GENDER-BASED NAVIGATION STEREOTYPE 5 women from a US university were trained in a virtual water maze to navigate to an invisible submerged platform.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender-Based Navigation Stereotype Improves Men’s Search for a Hidden Goal

et al. 2012

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. (2012) 'Gender-based navigation stereotype improves men's search for a hidden goal.', Sex roles., 67 (11)(12). pp. 682-695. Further information on publisher's website:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-012- Publisher's copyright statement:The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractWhile a general stereotype exists that men are better at navigating than women, experimental evidence indicates that men and women differ in their use of spatial strategies, and this preference determines gender-differences. When both environmental geometry and landmark cues are available, men appear to learn to navigate using both types of cues, while women show a preference for using landmarks. Using a computer-generated task, 80undergraduate students from North-East England learned to navigate to a hidden goal.Activating the general navigation stereotype improved the performance of men, compared to the control condition, both when only geometric cues and only landmark cues were present (stereotype lift), suggesting that activating a general stereotype can affect tasks both with (geometry) and without (landmark) established gender-differences in preference. In addition, in the test trial (hidden goal removed) women who learned to navigate using only landmarks spent longer in the correct location of the hidden goal than those who learned to navigate using only geometry. In contrast, the opposite result was found for men, suggesting that when only one cue-type is available, gender-differences still occur, with women better able to navigate using landmarks than geometry, while men seemed to learn more about the location of the goal with reference to geometric than landmark cues.

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Sex differences and correlations in a virtual Morris water task, a virtual radial arm maze, and mental rotation

Cited by 281 publications

References 33 publications

Spatial navigation impairment is proportional to right hippocampal volume

Spatial navigation impairment is proportional to right hippocampal volume

Spatial relational learning and memory abilities do not differ between men and women in a real-world, open-field environment

Gender-Based Navigation Stereotype Improves Men’s Search for a Hidden Goal

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