Gender differences in spatial cognition

Abstract

Spatial abilities, such as wayfinding and memorizing object locations, seem to be equally important for every individual. Yet both common belief and scientific literature claim that men and women differ in these abilities. Whereas ‘spatial ability’ used to be considered as a unitary capacity, on which males would generally outperform females, this oversimplified view has been convincingly challenged during the past decades. Besides the fact that spatial cognition comprises a broad range of different skills, it is now acknowledged that gender differences in spatial performance strongly depend on the specific ability measured. While subprocesses like mental rotation and spatial perception indeed show clear male advantages, the memorization of object locations often yields a females advantage. However, despite reasonably reliable findings with traditional paper-and-pencil tasks, findings on more real life activities are far less consistent. Understanding the key mechanisms requires the decomposition of these complex activities into their basic cognitive processes. The present thesis provides insight in some crucial task components- and conditions that can modulate gender differences in two important daily spatial abilities; object location memory and spatial navigation. On the one hand we have shown that controllable factors, such as task type, familiarity with an environment as well as different inclinations in males and females to focus on specific environmental cues, affect performance to solve particular spatial problems. Nevertheless, besides these situation specific gender effects, more hard-wired cognitive abilities seem to be involved as well, as is reflected for example in the consistent male advantage in mental rotation ability, as well as the demonstrated hormone-behaviour correlates. In addition to a better understanding of differences between male and female spatial cognitive behaviour, this research contributes to a more substantial comprehension of the various complex cognitive processes spatial abilities encompass.