Early sex differences in weighting geometric cues

Abstract

When geometric and non-geometric information are both available for specifying location, men have been shown to rely more heavily on geometry compared to women. To shed insight on the nature and developmental origins of this sex difference, we examined how 18- to 24-month-olds represented the geometry of a surrounding (rectangular) space when direct non-geometric information (i.e. a beacon) was also available for localizing a hidden object. Children were tested on a disorientation task with multiple phases. Across experiments, boys relied more heavily than girls on geometry to guide localization, as indicated by their errors during the initial phase of the task, and by their search choices following transformations that left only geometry available, or that, under limited conditions, created a conflict between beacon and geometry. Analyses of search times suggested that girls, like boys, had encoded geometry, and testing in a square space ruled out explanations concerned with motivational and methodological variables. Taken together, the findings provide evidence for an early sex difference in the weighting of geometry. This sex difference, we suggest, reflects subtle variation in how boys and girls approach the problem of combining multiple sources of location information.

Two fields are better than one: Developmental and cognitive perspectives on underatnding spatial reorientation

“…Importantly, in a similar experiment, when a feature wall was used, the sex difference went away and both men and women encoded the geometry of the space (Kelly & Bischof, 2008). Lourenco, Addy, Huttenlocher and Fabian (2011) found similar results with toddlers. In a real-world version of the task with an enclosed rectangular search space and either a unique hiding container or a distinctive flag placed on top of the target container, toddlers learned to reorient.…”

“…However, some geometric information may exist even when geometry-only tests are failed. Lourenco et al (2011) included conflict trials designed to assess the relative use of geometric and feature cues. All toddlers preferred the beacon cue to geometry, and all toddlers, both boys and girls, were slower to respond on the conflict trials than they had been during training.…”

Why women see differently from the way men see? A review of sex differences in cognition and sports

“…When geometric and non-geometric objects are both available for specifying location, men have been shown to rely more heavily on geometry compared to women and the sex differences in object location were also reported in young children with boys relied more heavily than girls on geometry to guide localization. 53 Sex differences in the object recognition memory are also related to the type of objects. For example, studies found that men are usually more affective by plants whereas women are more sensitive with animals.…”

Core Knowledge and the Emergence of Symbols: The Case of Maps

“…In contrast, young children fail to navigate by landmark representations on a map when the landmark serves as an indirect cue to a hidden object and therefore must be combined with geometric information (Rutland, Custance, & Campbell, 1993; Shusterman, et al, 2008). Indeed, both children and adults show higher sensitivity to geometric information when maps are devoid of such landmarks than when they contain them (Dehaene, Izard, Pica, & Spelke, 2006; Shusterman, et al, 2008): representations of the geometry of the layout and of individual landmark objects may be mutually competitive (Lourenco, Addy, Huttenlocher & Fabian, 2011). …”