Spatial ability, navigation strategy, and geographic knowledge among men and women

In a study of sex differences in navigation strategy and geographic knowledge, 90 men and 104 women completed cognitive spatial tests, gave directions from local maps, and identified places on a world map, On the spatial tests, men were better than women in mental rotation skill, but men and women were similar in object location memory, In giving directions, men were more abstract and Euclidian, using miles and north-south-east-west terms, whereas women were more concrete and personal, using landmarks and left-right terms. Older subjects of both sexes gave more abstract Euclidian directions than younger subjects did, On the world map, men identified more places than women did. The data fit a causal model in which sex predicts world map knowledge and the use of Euclidian directions, both directly and indirectly through a sex difference in spatial skills. The age effect, which was independent of sex, supports a developmental view of spatial cognition. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.