Sex Differences in Accuracy and Precision When Judging Time to Arrival: Data from Two Internet Studies

Abstract

We report two Internet studies that investigated sex differences in the accuracy and precision of judging time to arrival. We used accuracy to mean the ability to match the actual time to arrival and precision to mean the consistency with which each participant made their judgments. Our task was presented as a computer game in which a toy UFO moved obliquely towards the participant through a virtual three-dimensional space on route to a docking station. The UFO disappeared before docking and participants pressed their space bar at the precise moment they thought the UFO would have docked. Study 1 showed it was possible to conduct quantitative studies of spatiotemporal judgments in virtual reality via the Internet and confirmed reports that men are more accurate because women underestimate, but found no difference in precision measured as intra-participant variation. Study 2 repeated Study 1 with five additional presentations of one condition to provide a better measure of precision. Again, men were more accurate than women but there were no sex differences in precision. However, within the coincidence-anticipation timing (CAT) literature, of those studies that report sex differences, a majority found that males are both more accurate and more precise than females. Noting that many CAT studies report no sex differences, we discuss appropriate interpretations of such null findings. While acknowledging that CAT performance may be influenced by experience we suggest that the sex difference may have originated among our ancestors with the evolutionary selection of men for hunting and women for gathering.

How is Your 8 O‘clock Different from Mine? The Accuracy of Public Timekeeping

“…However, the results seen in the present study are in line with those of several studies on gender differences in time perception [19], time estimation [20], and reaction time [21], [22]. Although the findings in previous studies and present study shown that men are more accurate than women in time, on average, it has been concluded by many reviewers of gender differences that female is better than male on some verbal tasks whereas male is better than female on some spatial tasks [23].…”

Young Women do it Better: Sexual Dimorphism in Temporal Discrimination

“…Evidence in humans from neuroimaging studies indicates the SC is activated by multisensory looming stimuli ( 44 , 45 ). Women, compared to men, underestimate the time to arrival of a visual looming stimulus, whereas with receding stimuli there is no difference between the sexes ( 46 , 47 ). A looming (compared to a receding) auditory stimulus activates temporal cortical areas as well as discrete areas in the left superior posterior cerebellar cortex and a midbrain region compatible with the ascending reticular formation ( 48 ).…”

Visual anticipation time differences between athletes in open and closed skills sports

“…A considerable amount of literature has been published on age (Benguigui & Ripoll, 1998;Vanttinen, Blomqvist, Luhtanen, & Hakkinen, 2010), gender (Millslagle, 2004;Sanders & Sinclair, 2011), skill levels (Lyons, Al-Nakeeb, & Nevill, 2008;Tenenbaum, Sar-El, & Bar-Eli, 2000), and sports type (Ak & Koçak, 2010;Akpinar, Devrilmez, & Kirazci, 2012), however literatures is still lacking in relation of VAT to the sporting environment. Researchers found higher accuracy and consistency in anticipation ability depending on the sports involved.…”