Spatial Ability, Navigation Strategy, and Geographic Knowledge Among Men and Women

Dabbs, James M.; Chang, E-Lee; Strong, Rebecca A; Milun, Rhonda

doi:10.1016/s1090-5138(97)00107-4

Cited by 368 publications

(279 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…A well-known issue with respect to utilizing spatial knowledge for wayfinding is the distinction of "route-survey" strategies between genders. For example, studies showed that males tend to use Euclidean distances and absolute directions (i.e., east, west, south and north) during wayfinding (the "orientation strategy"), while females are more likely to focus on the sequence from place to place and left-right turns (the "route strategy") [13,14]. Females were found to use more landmarks in giving and following directions and had higher scores on object location memory tasks [12,14].…”

Section: Gender Differences In Wayfindingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies have found that 3D representations can facilitate landmark recognition with higher confidence [1,2,25]. It is suggested that while 3D representations can facilitate the use of Euclidean identification in the case of males, object location memory can facilitate the recognition of landmarks by females during navigation [13]. Thus, it is plausible that integrating landmarks into maps in a 3D form can benefit both genders.…”

Section: Gender Differences In Wayfindingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Exploratory Study Investigating Gender Effects on Using 3D Maps for Spatial Orientation in Wayfinding

Liao

Dong

2017

IJGI

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3D representations in applications that provide self-localization and orientation in wayfinding have become increasingly popular in recent years because of technical advances in the field. However, human factors have been largely ignored while designing 3D representations in support of pedestrian navigation. This exploratory study aims to explore gender effects on using 3D maps for spatial orientation. We designed a 3D map that combines salient 3D landmarks and 2D layouts, and evaluated gender differences in their performance during direction-pointing tasks by administrating an eye tracking experiment. The results indicate there was no significant overall gender difference on performance and visual attention. However, we observed that males using the 3D map paid more attention to landmarks in the environment and performed better than when using the conventional 2D map, whereas female performance did not show any significant difference between the two types of map usage. We also observed contrary gender differences in visual attention on landmarks between the 3D and 2D maps. While males fixated longer on landmarks than females when using the 3D map, females paid more visual attention to landmarks than males when using the 2D map. In addition, verbal protocols showed that males had more confidence while make decisions. These empirical results can be helpful in the design of map-based wayfinding enhancement tools.

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Section: Gender Differences In Wayfindingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gender Differences In Wayfindingmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Exploratory Study Investigating Gender Effects on Using 3D Maps for Spatial Orientation in Wayfinding

Liao

Dong

2017

IJGI

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“…Although care is required in generalising from the very small sample in this study (even though well-matched in age and IQ), the findings are consistent with gender differences found in larger studies. In contrast to mental rotation and spatial navigation which typically reveal an advantage for males over females (Astur, Ortiz, & Sutherland, 1998;Dabbs, Chang, Strong, & Milun, 1998;Moffatt, Hampson, & Hatzipantelis, 1998), females outperform males when asked to identify which object of a set of objects has been moved (McBurney, Gaulin, Devineni, & Adams, 1997;Silverman & Eals, 1992)-the basic paradigm used here. The exceptions to this female advantage in conditions subject and subject&cue-card perhaps indicates an advantage for men in using internal updating that is masked by the advantage for women when visual snapshots can be used.…”

Section: The Effect Of Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Orientational manoeuvres in the dark: dissociating allocentric and egocentric influences on spatial memory

2004

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Subjects in a darkroom saw an array of five phosphorescent objects on a circular table and, after a short delay, indicated which object had been moved. During the delay the subject, the table or a phosphorescent landmark external to the array was moved (a rotation about the centre of the table) either alone or together. The subject then had to indicate which one of the five objects had been moved. A fully factorial design was used to detect the use of three types of representations of object location: (i) visual snapshots; (ii) egocentric representations updated by self-motion; and (iii) representations relative to the external cue. Improved performance was seen whenever the test array was oriented consistently with any of these stored representations. The influence of representations (i) and (ii) replicates previous work. The influence of representation (iii) is a novel finding which implies that allocentric representations play a role in spatial memory, even over short distances and times. The effect of the external cue was greater when initially experienced as stable. Females out-performed males except when the array was consistent with self-motion but not visual snapshots. These results enable a simple egocentric model of spatial memory to be extended to address largescale navigation, including the effects of allocentric knowledge, landmark stability and gender. q

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“…While there is some evidence to suggest a gender difference in spatial recognition abilities (for example, Lawton 2001; Kim et al 2007), Dabbs et al (1998) found no difference between the memory of object locations in males and females, and likewise performance on a spatial priming task did not differ between genders (Koshino et al 2000). It seems therefore unlikely that a more balanced sample would have yielded a substantially different result.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Spatial priming in visual search: memory for body-centred information

et al. 2011

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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. AbstractSpatial priming allows memory for target locations to be evaluated, whereby when a target appears in the same location across trials participants become more efficient at locating it and consequently their search times decrease. Previously, we reported priming effects when the location of a target was repeated with respect to the participant's body but not when it was repeated relative to their eye position; therefore, suggesting that body-centred information is available after a delay of at least a few seconds (Ball, Smith, Ellison, & Schenk, 2010). However, we were unable to rule out the possibility that stable allocentric cues within the room may have contributed to the priming effects that we observed. In this current study we introduced a condition where, despite participants moving to a new location between trials, their position relative to the target was maintained. This movement disrupted any potential room-based cues about the target location. While we replicated our previous finding of priming when the location of the target was repeated relative to the viewer when no movement was required, we also found robust priming effects when participants moved to a new location in between trials. Thus, we provide clear evidence that in our spatial priming task the location of the target was being coded in a body-centred reference frame and that this information is available after a delay.

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Spatial Ability, Navigation Strategy, and Geographic Knowledge Among Men and Women

Cited by 368 publications

References 21 publications

An Exploratory Study Investigating Gender Effects on Using 3D Maps for Spatial Orientation in Wayfinding

An Exploratory Study Investigating Gender Effects on Using 3D Maps for Spatial Orientation in Wayfinding

Orientational manoeuvres in the dark: dissociating allocentric and egocentric influences on spatial memory

Spatial priming in visual search: memory for body-centred information

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