Sorry, ladies... the chaps really do have a better sense of direction

IN the battle of the sexes, it’s a regular cause of arguments – who has the best sense of direction?

Now a scientist claims to have the answer. And it’s not good news for the ladies.

In a study, men did better than women when asked to navigate their way through a maze, using a different part of their brain to accomplish the task and taking several shortcuts.

The study was carried out by Carl Pintzka, a medical doctor and PhD student at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s department of neuroscience.

He gave participants 3D goggles and a joystick and asked them to orient themselves in a large virtual maze while he used an MRI scanner to monitor their brain activity. The 18 men and 18 women first took an hour to learn the layout of the maze before being given 45 navigation tasks, such as finding different items hidden in the maze.

The men solved 50 per cent more of the tasks than the women. They oriented themselves using the four cardinal directions – north, south, east and west – while women tended to plan out routes.

Mr Pintzka said: ‘If they’re going to a building, men usually go in the general direction where it’s located. Women usually orient themselves along a route to get there, for example, “Go past the hairdresser and then up the street and turn right after the store”.’

The study said using the cardinal directions was more efficient because it was more flexible – the destination can be reached faster because the strategy depends less on where you start.

Mr Pintzka added: ‘Other researchers have documented that women are better at finding objects locally than men. In simple terms, women are faster at finding things in the house, and men are faster at finding the house.’

The experiment was repeated with a new group of women who were given the male sex hormone testosterone. Mr Pintzka said they did not solve any more tasks, but had an improved knowledge of the layout of the maze.