Abstract
Sex differences in navigation performance have been attributed to sex differences in information processing during navigation. Perspective refers to the viewpoint of the navigator, with previous work suggesting that men tend to use an allocentric perspective, while women tend to use an egocentric perspective during navigation. Furthermore, different navigation strategies may be used when moving from point A to B, with previous work suggesting that men tend to use a Euclidian strategy, while women tend to use a landmark-based strategy. However, it has not been studied whether perspective and strategy affect sex differences in navigation interactively or independently of each other. The present study aimed to investigate the interactive effects of perspective and strategy on sex differences in a 3D navigation task. In different levels of the task, perspective and strategy were modulated in a 2 × 2 design via different instructions. Potential mediating effects of video gaming experience and sex hormone levels were addressed. We found that men outperformed women in all levels of the navigation task. However, the male advantage was more pronounced using the allocentric perspective compared to the egocentric perspective. When using the allocentric perspective, men showed better performance using a Euclidian strategy while women showed better performance using a landmark-based strategy. The strategy did not modulate performance under the egocentric perspective. Accordingly, sex differences in navigation were interactively modulated by perspective and strategy. These effects were not explained by sex differences in video gaming experience or sex hormone levels.
Highlights
Virtual navigation tasks have been used to study different forms of navigation [1,2,3]
We hypothesize that sex differences in navigation performance depend on the phrasing of directions, in such a way that: 1. Sex differences favoring males will be larger with allocentric directions compared to egocentric directions since allocentric directions force participants to obtain an allocentric perspective, while egocentric directions force participants to obtain an egocentric perspective
Sex differences in navigation time and their modulation by perspective and strategy To evaluate sex differences in navigation performance and whether they were modulated by perspective and strategy, we applied a lme on the dependent variable navigation time modulating participant number as a random factor and level, as well as the interactive effects of sex*perspective*strategy as fixed effects (NT ~ 1|PNr + level + sex*perspective*strategy)
Summary
Virtual navigation tasks have been used to study different forms of navigation [1,2,3]. Virtual navigation tasks have the advantage that they allow us to control the first two aspects, i.e., the properties of the environment and participants’ knowledge of the environment in order to study more explicitly the navigation strategies subjects employ. Metric knowledge involves precise information about the absolute distances (e.g., 35 m) between landmarks in the environment or between the navigator and the target, and is often described in Euclidian terms (not to be confused with the Euclidian distance to a target!). Topological knowledge involves less precise information about the relative position between landmarks in the environment or between the navigator and the target. It is often described in landmark-based terms (e.g., “next to the church”)
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