Abstract
When required to locate places on outline maps, males consistently
perform more accurately than females. This sex difference in
geographical knowledge has been observed in samples throughout
the United States, in all age ranges examined from the second
to the 9th decade of life and in samples differing in average
education level from high school to postgraduate degrees. Both
males and females appear to acquire geographical knowledge during
surface travel through the environment. The information acquired
during everyday travel is apparently integrated into topographic
representations that comprise a cognitive map. This process
is less efficient in females probably because they attend to
and remember more about landmarks and less about distance and
directional cues than do males. To examine the importance of
driving experience on the ability to locate places on an outline
map of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, adolescents who
were too young to drive and older persons with varying amounts
of experience traveling in the metropolitan area were studied.
In the present study the magnitude of the sex difference in
accuracy, though not the absolute level of performance, was
similar in groups of people too young to drive and in younger
and older drivers. Hence, the sex difference in geographical
knowledge cannot be the product of differences in driving that
may exist between males and females. (JINS, 2002,
8, 804–810.)
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Subject
Psychiatry and Mental health,Neurology (clinical),Clinical Psychology,General Neuroscience
Cited by
10 articles.
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