Better sense of direction? It may rest on where you live, chaps

THE suggestion that men have a better sense of direction than women is one of the world’s oldest gender stereotypes. But scientists setting out to prove the case have found that the difference in ability is actually minuscule – and depends almost entirely on where people live.

Researchers assessing data from more than half a million people across 57 counties found that in societies where gender equality is more equal, women’s sense of direction is almost as good as men’s. A country’s GDP also had a significant effect.

They also found that teenagers have the best navigation skills, but these generally decline with age, according to the data, while those with “Viking blood” have the best skills of all.

The study, by UCL and the University of East Anglia, published in the journal Current Biology, found people from Nordic nations, North Americans and Antipodeans are the best navigators.

The experiment used a computer game, Sea Hero Quest, which has more than four million players and has been developed to aid understanding into spatial navigation – a key indicator in Alzheimer’s disease.

The game is a nautical adventure to save an old sailor’s lost memories. By touching a smartphone screen, the player can chart a course around desert islands and icy oceans. The game records the player’s sense of direction and navigational ability. Thanks to its popularity, Sea Hero Quest has turned into the world’s biggest dementia research experiment.

“We’ve found that the environment you live in has an impact on your spatial navigation abilities,” said Professor Hugo Spiers, the study’s lead author.

“We’re continuing to analyse the data and hope to gain a better understanding of why people in some countries perform better than others.”

For the current study, researchers restricted the data to those who had provided their age, gender and nationality, and were from countries with at least 500 participants.

The research team corrected for video game ability by comparing participants’ main results to their performance in tutorial levels, which assessed their natural ability with video games.

The researchers suggested people performed better in wealthier countries because they had better education standards, health and an ability to travel. However, countries with a national interest in orienteering or sports relying on navigation, such as the Nordic countries, Canada and Australia, also played a factor, they suggested.

“Our findings suggest that sex differences in cognitive abilities are not fixed, but instead are influenced by cultural environments, such as the role of women in society,” said Dr Antoine Coutrot, a study co-author, who completed the research at UCL before moving to the French National Centre for Scientific Research.

The study is the first to connect gender inequality to a more specific cognitive measure. It was conducted by researchers at UCL, the University of East Anglia, Mcgill University, Bournemouth University, ETH Zurich and Northumbria University.