Sex differences in a landmark environmental re-orientation task only during the learning phase

Perspective changing in WalCT and VR-WalCT: A gender difference study [WalCT – VR-WalCT: Gender differences]

“…Specifically, we were interested at revealing the presence of gender differences, since in previous studies the most of them was detected in the learning phase (Nori et al, 2015;Piccardi et al, 2008Piccardi et al, , 2011aPiccardi et al, , 2011b and not in the retrieval phase. As a consequence we take specifically care in providing the ideal time for men and women to learn.…”

“…Indeed, it has been reported that men are more proficient than women in learning both environments (Nori et al, 2015;Piccardi et al, 2008), real and virtual, because they use different navigational strategies (see Grön, Wunderlich, Spitzer, Tomczak, & Riepe, 2000). However, in the present study we investigate the presence of gender differences in the retrieval phase, different from Piccardi et al (2011aPiccardi et al ( , 2011bPiccardi et al ( , 2014 we expected to observe some differences since we hypothesized that not only the environments could be coded in different way when an individual has to retrieve long-term navigational information, but that in this case the task requirements could modulate such differences.…”

“…On the basis of Piccardi et al (2008Piccardi et al ( , 2011aPiccardi et al ( , 2011bPiccardi et al ( , 2014, we considered that women and men need different time for learning: the experimenter demonstrated each path for 3 times for men and 4 times for women (as in Piccardi et al, 2011aPiccardi et al, , 2011b. Blindfolded participants were seated in a wheelchair located at the end of the room and wheeled to the path.…”

“…Such a task involves locating a landmark or an object from an imagined perspective, projecting a self-to-object frame of reference (i.e., egocentric frame of reference) into a spatial position, orienting it accordingly, and then using it to compute the location of the target (Avraamides, Ioannidou, & Kyranidou, 2007). Several studies from the spatial cognition domain have analyzed how spatial information is acquired by primary, secondary learning and have tried to describe how navigational memory is organized (Boccia, Nemmi, & Guariglia, 2014;Boccia et al, 2015;Nemmi, Boccia, Piccardi, Galati, & Guariglia, 2013;Nori et al, 2015;Piccardi, Bianchini, Iasevoli, Giannone, & Guariglia, 2011b;Piccardi et al, 2011a). Perspective-taking, a popular task in spatial cognition research, is frequently used to investigate the organizational structure of spatial memory (e.g., Mou et al, 2004;Greenauer & Waller, 2010;Kelly & Avraamides, 2011).…”

“…But in certain circumstances the effect of orientation dependence does not occur or does not alter the performance or mitigate it. There are various factors that contribute to the disappearance or the reduction of the alignment effect: familiarity with the environment (Nori & Piccardi, 2011;Piccardi et al, 2011aPiccardi et al, , 2011b, environmental characteristics (Sholl & Nolin, 1997), the motor, proprioceptive and vestibular information (Richardson, Montello, & Hegarty, 1999;Rossano, West, Robertson, Wayne, & Chase, 1999;Sun, Campos, & Chan, 2004), primary learning (Presson & Hazelrigg, 1984) and the strategies or spatial cognitive style used to acquire spatial information (Nori & Giusberti, 2003;Nori et al, 2006;Rossano, Warren, & Kenan, 1995). Regardless of the way spatial information is learned, women seem to be less proficient than men in orienting themselves during navigation (e.g., Halpern, 2000).…”