1. The document discusses gender differences in spatial orientation abilities and wayfinding strategies. 2. It analyzes results from experiments that assessed how well males and females could locate themselves on maps and find directions, finding that males performed better on some route and survey tasks. 3. Visuospatial working memory (VSWM) was found to better predict orientation abilities for males than females, and active processing tasks predicted performance better for females, suggesting they use different strategies.

1. Point to-accredit with, account for
Stereotype-characteristic
Develop-accrue,advance,evolve,cultivate
Strategy-aerial tactics,approach
Restriction-boundary,break
Reverse-invert
Simplify-clarify,abridge,refine
Cue-bit, bit part
Report-declare,describe
Rotation-articulation,chain
Correlate-associate,connect,correspond
Result from-arise from,follow from
Influence-affect,have impact upon
Arise from=derive from
Obtain-gain,go,get
Dissociate-separate,setapart,segregate
Emerge-appear, come out
Favor-support,give preference to
Highlight-emphasise,accent,feature
Result from=
Display-demonstrate, expose, feature, manifest
Present-demonstrate,bring forward
Impede-hinder, inhibit, obstruct
Imply-mean,suggest,indicate
Manipulation-treatment,use
Preclude-eliminate

2. Results
T value
Degrees of freedom-n-1,within or between subjects
Alpha or p value
One or two-tailed hypothesis
Accept or reject the hypothesis
Explain the results in terms of the hypothesis
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http://www.psypress.com/common/sample-chapters/9781841693729.pdf
Reporting the results-Measures of central tendency were computed to summarize the
data for the age variable. Measures of dispersion were computed to understand the
variability of scores for the age variable. The following are the results of this analysis;
N = 10, M=22.80, SD=8.12. When you look at the mean, it appears that most
students in our class were of traditional college age. However, based on the large
standard deviation, it looks like the ages varied quite a bit.”
Procedure and participants:
-interview 15 males and 15 females
-location-somewhere convenient in Bournemouth away from a main road and
interview passers-by,asking them to find where I am on the map
According to Lawton et al. men were better in way-giving tasks. By contrast,
Olaughlin and Brubaker (1998) didn`t find differences in a mapping task.
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http://www.usc.edu/its/stats/spss/reports.html
Introduction
The aim of this study was to investigate gender differences in spatial orientation. The materials used
were a map,on which participants would point to the current location of the interviewer and a timer
to measure their response times. This investigation was aimed at finding out how males and females

3. differed in giving directions, what strategies they used and what other factors had impact on their
performance. Researchers use two types of knowledge that are generally the basis for way finding:
route knowledge and survey knowledge (O`Keefe & Nadel,1978; Russel& Ward,1982; Siegel &
White,1975; Zimring,1985). Route knowledge includes a list of instructions about how to get from
one location to the next. Survey knowledge involves a cognitive map of the environment that
combines routes in a gestalt-like network of relationships between locations. Recent evidence shows
that relying on route knowledge as opposed to survey knowledge may be gender related. Bever
(1992) declared that women tended to perform better at learning a 8-figure maze when required to
travel in the same direction on all trials than when required to start at opposite points on alternating
trials ( using the route knowledge).On the other hand,men learned the maze better in the two-way
condition than in the one-way condition.
Gender differences in spatial ability are typically tested using either abstract laboratory words such
as mental rotation tests, or more real world tasks, such as map reading, showing the direction of
unseen locations and etc. In addition, four visio-spatial working memory tasks (VSWM) were showed.
Significant differences giving preference to men were reported, supporting existing evidence.
However ,there wasn`t a significant difference between men and women in orientation tasks
performance. The methods of correlation between working memory and spatial orientation tasks
showed that men and women used somewhat different strategies in executing the orientation tasks.
In
Gender effects on cognitive abilities were under a huge investigation in the past In
particular, differences in visuo-spatial abilities have been reported and confirmed by
experimentalevidence (see Halpern, 2000; Maccoby&Jacklin, 1974; Richardson,
1991) and meta-analytic studies (Linn & Petersen, 1985; Voyer, Voyer, &Bryden,
1995). Several hypotheses have been put forward to explain these findings either focusing
on biological factors such as hormones (e.g. Broverman et al., 1981; Kimura, 1999) or

4. genetic influences (e.g. Dawson, 1972; Kimura, 1999). More recently, several authors
emphasizedthe importance of socio-cultural factors on women’ performance in visuo-spatial
tasks (e.g. Baenninger&Newcombe, 1989; Caplan, Crawford, Hyde, & Richardson,
1997; Richardson, 1994), showing significant effects of training and cognitive
strategies.
Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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The characteristics of these tasks are as follows: 1) they had to be related to the relevant theoretical
concepts in this field, namely landmark, route and survey knowledge, as originally proposed by Siegel
and White (1975). 2) The Palatino map proved to be the ideal ground for developing a battery of
sensible tools for investigating individual differences. It is rather different from other artificial maps
that have been used in the literature, such as the one designed by Thorndyke and Stasz (1980) with
respect of two characteristics: the distinctive visual characteristics of the different landmarks and the
irregular not grid-like nature of the map. 3) All tasks require recognition: this procedure increased
the ecological value of these tasks, maintaining at the same time the possibility of differentiating
among groups. In addition, the characteristics of the material make it possible to hypothesize a
future use with people who already experience a reduction in their cognitive abilities, such as
patients affected by Alzheimer-type dementia, or people deserving special attention like elderly
people. It has been repeatedly suggested that visuo-spatial deficits as well as orientation and
geographical abilities could well predict early signs of neurological deterioration (e.g. Beatty &
Bernstein, 1989; Kaskie&Storandt, 1995). However, a battery of orientation tasks that could address
both clinical and theoretical needs is not, at present, available.
In order to evaluate the contribution of VSWM on orientation performance—namely the ability to
use map information in a wide sample of orientation tasks such as map completion, wayfinding, map
rotation, Euclidean and route distance judgement—a set of VSWM tasks including both active and
passive processing was used. Moreover women and men sub-samples were analyzed in order to
evaluate differences, if any, in the structure of such relationship. By considering the overall
performance in the eight orientation tasks, results indicated a relationship between these two sets of
abilities. However, the percentage of explained variance predicted by VSWM abilities is significantly
higher for men than for women. This result is of particular importance since empirical evidence was

5. not present in the contribution of VSWM in orientation tasks. Although the involvement of VSWM
abilities in orientation tasks is less relevant in women than in men, active processes seem to play an
important role. This result strengthened the relationship between visuo-spatial active processes and
female gender, as previous studies supported (e.g. Paivio& Clark, 1991; Vecchi&Girelli, 1998). From a
theoretical point of view, data confirmed the importance of considering the characteristics of the
task as an essential variable in interpreting working memory functions. Each task could well be
defined in terms of amount of active manipulation required and this variable influences the
magnitude of individual differences (see Cornoldi&Vecchi, 2003).
Moreover, present evidence suggests that lower abilities could not reflect limitations in the active
processing component but rather the choice of visuo-spatial strategy including an overload of active
resources or simply an incorrect selection of the best strategy for each kind of task. Our data also
suggest that gender differences do emerge in association with laboratory tests but are less evident in
ecological tasks. This could partially explain the adoption of different strategies in the female
populations: such strategies are overall less efficient but do not determine critical limitations in
everyday life.
Discussion
It is also important to consider gender effect while investigating visuo-spatial abilities since different
patterns of performance between men and women could result in minimizing overall cognitive
differences thus determining non -significant results. This shows the need to analyse gender effects
togetherwith cognitive strategies as for the performance of poor and good orienters. In several tasks,
poor and good orienters did show a partially different pattern in men and women. This pattern is
clearly compatible with the adoption of different strategies in relation with gender determining
significant differences in performance. An interesting pattern of relationship between poor and good
orienters and sex was found: three tasks (two route tasks and the map completion task) showed
gender-related differences, where men were better in good orienters, whereas the Euclidean
distance judgement task indicated an opposite pattern with poor orienters. The nature and
characteristics of men and women’ strategies cannot be inferred from the present study and need
further investigation in future research. However present datashows that interpreting gender
differences not only in terms of specific cognitive capacities is important not only in terms of specific
cognitive capacities but also with relation to more general metacognitive issues.
A set of differences between men and women were favoured : 1) VSWM predict orientation ability,
better in men than in women. 2) The orientation performance of women is more accurately
predicted by the tasks involving active processing, showing that it is critical in women's visuo-spatial
performance. 3) Gender-related differences appear between men and women when different
analyses for low and high ability groups are performed. In particular male good orienters performed
better than women on both route and survey tasks. 4) Gender-related differences in VSWM are
confirmed: our results support the previous findings.
In conclusion, visuo-spatial abilities could be very important for the execution of orientation tasks.
However, VSWM tasks can explain only a limited percentage of variance in orientation tasks and it is
necessary to hypothesize a greater involvement of other components of working memory. Moreover,
the involvement of VSWM in orientation abilities seems to be related to gender differences. Men are
likely to use visuo-spatial abilities when orienting in the environment to a greater extent than

6. women do; this finding is supported by results showing a difference between men and women in
the good orienters ability group. These results emphasized that cognitive strategies may both
modulate cognitive abilities and help analyze gender differences. Vecchi (2001) has recently pointed
out the critical role of mental strategies in determining gender differences in visuo-spatial tasks when
interpreting the nature of male's advantage in an active visuo-spatial task. The interpretation of
individual differences in terms of selection and adoption of different cognitive strategies does give
preference to the role of metacognitive abilities in determining the level of VSWM capacity (see
Cornoldi&Vecchi, 2003) and, from a theoretical perspective, the importance of considering the
working memory system as a whole. A visuo-spatial task requires the active involvement of more
than a single item of the system and thus it is particularly important to understand not only
segregation between individual components but also interaction and coordination between such
components.
females males
mean 17.57 22.19
Std dev. 17.194 20.594
median 16.41 15.93
A set of
VSWM tasks involving both active and passive processing was used in order to evaluate the
contribution of VSWM on orientation performance.Moreover we
analysed women and men sub-samples in order to assess differences, if any, in the
structure of such relationship.