Sorry ladies, men ARE best map readers

MANY a car journey has been marred by couples arguing over which route to take.

But now scientists have confirmed what men have always suspected – that they are better at navigating than women.

Men were found to be more efficient at finding their way because they favoured shortcuts, while women stuck to familiar routes.

The results were based on two experiments involving a group of 140 men and women.

Yet while men were better on average at navigating, some were hopeless. And the best women were as good as the best men.

In the experiments, people were asked to navigate a three-dimensional computer maze – which they viewed through ‘virtual reality’ headsets.

They were then shown routes to reach a final destination.

The subjects were asked to make their own way to the goal – and were free to take shortcuts.

Researcher Professor Alexander Boone, of the University of California, Santa Barbara, said: ‘As predicted from previous research, these experiments showed men were more likely to take shortcuts and on average reached their goal location faster than women. In contrast, female participants were more likely to follow learned routes and wander.

‘In both experiments men were significantly more efficient.’

‘ Wandering’ was defined as going over the same path twice or more while looking for the goal.

The research found a ‘large difference in efficiency’ over how long men and women took to reach the goal locations, and whether they reached them by following a direct route. The men reached the destination quicker.

However, these are differences in average performance, and some women were just as efficient as the best men. The research is published in the journal Memory & Cognition.

Professor Boone said: ‘Overall, our research indicates that the sex difference in navigation efficiency is large, and is partly related to navigation strategy.’

He added that the finding that women wander more might reflect a possible inability to learn the layout of an area, at least with the amount of familiarisation they had in this experiment.

It might also be because men tend to spend more time playing video games and therefore would be more familiar with ‘the interface or navigation in virtual environments’, he said.