title: Sex differences in a landmark environmental re-orientation task only during the learning phase.
abstract: Sex differences are consistently reported in human navigation. Indeed, to orient themselves during navigation women are more likely to use landmark-based strategies and men Euclidean-based strategies. The difference could be due to selective social pressure, which fosters greater spatial ability in men, or biological factors. And the great variability of the results reported in the literature could be due to the experimental setting more than real differences in ability. In this study, navigational behaviour was assessed by means of a place-learning task in which a modified version of the Morris water maze for humans was used to evaluate sex differences. In using landmarks, sex differences emerged only during the learning phase. Although the men were faster than the women in locating the target position, the differences between the sexes disappeared in delayed recall.
authors: Dipartimento di Scienze della Salute, Università degli Studi dell'Aquila, Via Vetoio, Coppito 2, 67010 Coppito (AQ), Italy. laura.piccardi@cc.univaq.it
authors: Laura
authors: L
authors: Piccardi
authors: Filippo
authors: F
authors: Bianchini
authors: Luigi
authors: L
authors: Iasevoli
authors: Gianluca
authors: G
authors: Giannone
authors: Cecilia
authors: C
authors: Guariglia
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003463:Cues; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014785:Vision, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult