Straight Men Are Better Map Readers Than Straight Women, Study Says*
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 06.01.07 | 2:04 PM ET
So are bisexual men, gay men, gay women and bisexual women. In fact, that’s the map-reading hierarchy according to a study conducted by the UK’s University of Warwick with help from the BBC.
The researchers collected data from 109,612 men and 88,509 women ages 20-65. They “looked at what’s called mental rotation,” according to an AAP story in the Sydney Morning Herald. “This is our ability to mentally visualise an object from different perspectives.” To be sure, it’s welcome reinforcement for those much-lampooned men who don’t like to ask for directions—and it perhaps means more circular motion for those who travel with them.
* Update, 3:34 p.m. ET: We also unearthed a story in the Taipei Times that revealed this in 2005: “Through history women have been the butt of smirking male jokes about their alleged inability to give directions or to read road maps. Now, researchers at the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, have discovered that a woman’s spatial ability, and hence her ability to read maps, actually increases during her menstrual period.”
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
Eva 06.01.07 | 3:20 PM ET
There was a bit from one of the Narnia books (Prince Caspian?) that always stuck with me. The four kids are walking through the woods and the two girls have gotten all turned around. Edmund makes a comment about how boys always have a map in their heads, and Lucy has a comeback about the map not leaving room for much else.
On a somewhat related topic - can I use the inadequacy of straight female mental rotation abilities to explain my parallel parking skills?
Mike 06.01.07 | 4:25 PM ET
I’m sure this very relevant (to what exactly?) study was also government funded.
Waste? What government waste?
rachel 06.18.07 | 8:58 AM ET
Hmm. So, should straight women who can read maps begin questioning their sexuality? ;)