No Gender Differences in Egocentric and Allocentric Environmental Transformation After Compensating for Male Advantage by Manipulating Familiarity

Nori, Raffaella; Piccardi, Laura; Maialetti, Andrea; Goro, Mirco; Rossetti, Andrea O.; Argento, Ornella; Guariglia, Cecilia

doi:10.3389/fnins.2018.00204

Cited by 36 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Accordingly, it is necessary to find an optimal level of difficulty [8]. Our results also confirm recent findings reporting that women are as accurate as men [63] provided that both groups are given a sufficient amount of time to learn spatial relationships and repetitions. Therefore, the degree of familiarity with the environment would play a role as a modulating factor, making up for men's advantage.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Shall We Dance? Dancing Modulates Executive Functions and Spatial Memory

Noguera

Carmona

Rueda

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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Background: Aging is generally considered to be related to physical and cognitive decline. This is especially prominent in the frontal and parietal lobes, underlying executive functions and spatial memory, respectively. This process could be successfully mitigated in certain ways, such as through the practice of aerobic sports. With regard to this, dancing integrates physical exercise with music and involves retrieval of complex sequences of steps and movements creating choreographies. Methods: In this study, we compared 26 non-professional salsa dancers (mean age 55.3 years, age-range 49–70 years) with 20 non-dancers (mean age 57.6 years, age-range 49–70 years) by assessing two variables: their executive functions and spatial memory performance. Results: results showed that dancers scored better that non-dancers in our tests, outperforming controls in executive functions-related tasks. Groups did not differ in spatial memory performance. Conclusions: This work suggests that dancing can be a valid way of slowing down the natural age-related cognitive decline. A major limitation of this study is the lack of fitness assessment in both groups. In addition, since dancing combines multiple factors like social contact, aerobic exercise, cognitive work with rhythms, and music, it is difficult to determine the weight of each variable.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Shall We Dance? Dancing Modulates Executive Functions and Spatial Memory

Noguera

Carmona

Rueda

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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“…Surprisingly, we observed that men spent more time learning the location of the objects. Although these results may seem to go against the previous literature (Piccardi et al, 2011b; Nori et al, 2018), we hypothesized that the fact that men took more time in the learning phase was not related to spatial orientation, but rather to their interest in the technology we used in this experiment. We observed that men were more enthusiastic about the AR app than women, paying more attention to how the AR app works and taking more time to observe the AR objects in detail, from a closer distance.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 82%

“…Additionally, it has been described that familiarity with the environment can influence participants’ performance in a real environmental spatial learning task, improving skills (Nori and Piccardi, 2011; Nori et al, 2018). In fact, familiarity with the environment allows more successful navigation in people with a poorer navigation style (Piccardi et al, 2011a), and the effect is more evident when, as in our experiment, participants move around freely in a real environment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Memory for Object Location in Augmented Reality: The Role of Gender and the Relationship Among Spatial and Anxiety Outcomes

Munoz-Montoya

Fidalgo

Juan

et al. 2019

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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The potential of augmented reality (AR) technology for the study of spatial memory and orientation is a new research field. AR defines systems that attempt to enhance the user’s experience with the physical world. In our app, we enhance the sense of sight by adding interactive 3D elements to the real environment. Our app can be used in any real environment so that the experimental conditions during the tasks and the way in which an individual navigates are similar to those used in real life. With AR, the experimenter has a high level of control of the task and can store the participant’s responses accurately. The classical factors that influence an individual’s performance on virtual spatial tasks are gender and cognitive factors. The influence of emotional factors on spatial performance has been studied more recently. Since AR tasks for the study of spatial memory and spatial orientation are new developments, little is known about the factors that are related to performance on tasks of this type. In our study, we tested 46 young adults (26 women) in an AR object-location task that was performed in a building. The participants had to memorize the position of eight virtual objects while they were walking through the environment. We also assessed the participants’ performance on an object-recall task, a map-pointing task, and a paper-and-pencil spatial orientation task. The self-reported importance of different spatial strategies for wayfinding and the levels of trait anxiety and wayfinding anxiety were also evaluated. Our findings indicate that men performed better on the spatial paper-and-pencil test and spent more time completing the learning phase of the AR task. The spatial memory for the location of the objects in AR and on the map correlated positively. Anxiety was related to individual differences in the self-reported use of a spatial orientation strategy, but the association among them was weak. Trait anxiety was positively related to the time employed by the participants during the learning phase of the AR task, whereas wayfinding anxiety correlated negatively with the preference for an orientation strategy. Our results highlight the importance of anxiety in spatial orientation.

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“…This finding is in agreement with the knowledge that the neurobiological process of memory consolidation extends well beyond the experimental time intervals, raising the possibility that tests using shorter delays (such as the WalCT) might not be fully sensitive to detecting subtle neurocognitive changes produced by OC use. In addition, the learning phase seems to be more sensitive to gender differences than the following retrieval phase, as also evidenced in other studies with other memory paradigms and longer delays (e.g., [ 21 , 22 , 57 , 58 ]). Putting this evidence together, we can speculate that learning is more sensitive to individual differences.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Effects of oral contraceptives and natural menstrual cycling on environmental learning

et al. 2018

Self Cite

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BackgroundEndogenous ovarian hormones as well as exogenous oestradiol and progesterone play an important role in cognitive processing. Specifically, these hormones play a role in different aspects of memory, both in terms of storage capacity and temporal duration of the mnemonic track. These hormones also have various effects on different types of memory (i.e., verbal, visuo-spatial, prospective). This study investigated the effects of hormones on topographic memory, a type of memory specifically needed to recall a pathway and to acquire spatial information about locations, distances, and directions.MethodsWe compared 25 naturally cycling women (NCW) in two different cycling phases, the early follicular phase (4th - 5th days) and the mid-luteal phase (20th-21st days), with 26 women taking oral contraceptives (OC) tested in the active pill phase (20th to 21st day of OC cycle) and the inactive pill phase (2nd to 4th day of OC cycle). Both groups performed the Walking Corsi Test to assess topographic memory in their respective cycling phases. Women were instructed to learn an eight-step sequence path and recall the path five minutes later.ResultsWe found that the two groups differed in terms of learning the 8-step sequence path; OC users were always better (4–5 days vs. 20–21 days) than NCW. No differences emerged in the delayed recall of the same path.ConclusionsAs already observed in other memory domains (i.e., verbal memory, emotional memory), OC users showed an advantage in terms of topographic learning. Our results might be explained by hormonal mechanisms and may suggest the future application of OC in women with topographic disorders or visuo-spatial difficulties.

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No Gender Differences in Egocentric and Allocentric Environmental Transformation After Compensating for Male Advantage by Manipulating Familiarity

Cited by 36 publications

References 55 publications

Shall We Dance? Dancing Modulates Executive Functions and Spatial Memory

Shall We Dance? Dancing Modulates Executive Functions and Spatial Memory

Memory for Object Location in Augmented Reality: The Role of Gender and the Relationship Among Spatial and Anxiety Outcomes

Effects of oral contraceptives and natural menstrual cycling on environmental learning

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